Highlight the word 'alligator' and ask the class if they can guess how this word came about.
Give out good quality dictionaries and ask the class to find the word 'alligator' and its etymology.
Click the resources link on the right to view suggestions for useful images to help the children.
Children guess the origins of these words first and then use their dictionaries to research their etymologies:
- adder - Old English 'naedre' meaning snake
- atlas - Greek god's name, often shown carrying the world on his shoulders
- thug - Indian word for 'assassin'
- bungalow - Indian for a 'one-storey house'
- crater - Greek 'krater' meaning 'mixing bowl'
- genie - Latin 'genius' meaning 'guardian spirit'
- limbo - Latin 'limbus' meaning the place where souls go that cannot enter heaven
- salary - Latin 'sal' meaning 'salt'. Roman soldiers were paid with salt
- style - Latin 'stylus' meaning a pointed instrument used for writing
- pandemonium - Greek 'pan' and Latin 'daemonium' meaning demon. Used as the capital of Hell in 'Paradise Lost' a poem by John Milton
- papier-mache - French meaning 'chewed paper'
- vandal - Latin meaning a member of a Germanic people that sacked Rome in 455 AD
- butler - Old French 'bouteillier' meaning 'bottle bearer'
- denim - French 'serge de Nīmes', a type of cloth from Nīmes
- hamburger - German 'Hamburger steak' meaning meat from Hamburg
- ketchup - Chinese meaning 'fish sauce'
- magazine - French 'magasin' meaning 'storehouse'
- monster - Latin 'monere' meaning 'to warn'
Children can collate their own research words with their etymologies.
Recap on the definition of 'etymology' and hear their children's own findings.