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I finally broke down and got an individual subscription to the OED today. Expensive! It may be the one single thing I miss most from academia.
whist The exclamation meaning 'hush!' is unrelated to 'whist' the card game. The former is a "natural utterance." The latter may possibly be related to 'whisk', the swift motion.
debonair The OED calls 'debonair' a "literary archaism." I don't agree.
savior Not apparently related to Greek "soter" (no, I can't be bothered with fonts), though I'd have to check an actual IE etymological dictionary to confirm. Is related to "holos/Ionic houlos", which I'm positive I knew back when I was in grad school.
vanilla
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2738#comic
The OED confirms that 'vanilla' is a diminutive of L. 'vagina', though of course "vagina" meant "sheath" in Latin. If I ever knew that 'vanilla' was from 'vagina', I had forgotten that particular etymology.
whist The exclamation meaning 'hush!' is unrelated to 'whist' the card game. The former is a "natural utterance." The latter may possibly be related to 'whisk', the swift motion.
debonair The OED calls 'debonair' a "literary archaism." I don't agree.
savior Not apparently related to Greek "soter" (no, I can't be bothered with fonts), though I'd have to check an actual IE etymological dictionary to confirm. Is related to "holos/Ionic houlos", which I'm positive I knew back when I was in grad school.
vanilla
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2738#comic
The OED confirms that 'vanilla' is a diminutive of L. 'vagina', though of course "vagina" meant "sheath" in Latin. If I ever knew that 'vanilla' was from 'vagina', I had forgotten that particular etymology.
