"C" Word Origins

Cadillac

French

Named after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the French explorer who founded Detroit, where the car company was later established.

Cadiz

Latin

From Spanish Cádiz, ultimately from Phoenician via Latin Gādēs.

Cadmus

Ancient Greek

Via Latin Cadmus, from Ancient Greek Κάδμος (Kádmos).

cadre

Latin

Borrowed from French cadre, from Italian quadro ("square, framework"), from Latin quadrum — the original sense was a "frame" or organizational skeleton.

Caesar

Latin

From Latin Caesar; the root behind titles like Kaiser and tsar.

Caesarean

Latin

Traditionally linked to the belief that Julius Caesar was born this way, from the Latin family name Caesar, though the connection is disputed by historians.

caesious

Origin

Latin caesius (“bluish-grey”); probably akin to Latin caelum (“sky”); see celestial.

caf

Origin

A clipped, casual short form of "café" or "cafeteria" — the kind of shortening that happens naturally in everyday speech.

cafeteria

French

Borrowed from Mexican Spanish cafetería ("coffeehouse"), from cafetera ("coffee maker"), tracing back through French to Arabic qahwa, "coffee."

caffeinated

Origin

From caffeine + -ated.

caffeine

French

Borrowed from French caféine, itself built from café ("coffee") plus the chemical suffix "-ine."

Cafferty

Origin

Reduced form of McCafferty.

Caffrey

Origin

Reduced form of McCaffrey.

caftan

Persian

From Turkish kaftan, itself from Persian khaftān, a long robe.

cag

Middle English

From Middle English kag, borrowed from a North Germanic source related to Old Norse kaggi and Swedish kagge, all meaning "keg."

cage

Latin

From Old French cage, going back to Latin cavea, "hollow place, enclosure" — the same root that gives us "cave" and "jail."

cagey

Origin · 1900

An American colloquial term of unclear origin, first recorded in the early 1900s. Some suggest a link to the wary, closed-off behavior of a caged animal, but this is only a guess.

Cagney

Irish

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Caingnigh (“descendant of Caingneach”), a byname from caingneach (“troublesome”).

Cahill

Irish

Anglicized from Irish Ó Cathail.

Cai

Origin

Borrowed from Mandarin 蔡 (cài).

Caiaphas

Latin

Via Latin and Greek from Hebrew קַיָפָא (qayafa).

caiman

Spanish

From Spanish caimán or Portuguese caimão, itself from a Cariban word, acayouman.

Cain

Hebrew

From Hebrew קַיִן (Káyin, "craftsman").

caird

Origin

From Irish ceard (“a tinker”).

cairn

Scottish Gaelic

From Scottish Gaelic càrn, ultimately from a Celtic root meaning "horn" — the same distant root behind the English word "horn."

Cairns

Origin

* As a Scottish surname, from Scots cairn, describing a manmade heap or mound of stones. * As an Irish surname, from Ó Ciaráin, Anglicized as Kieran and Kearns, sometimes conflated with the Scottish above.

Cairo

Italian

Borrowed via Italian Il Cairo, from Arabic القاهرة (al-qāhira, "the victorious").

cajole

Origin

Borrowed from French cajoler, probably a blend of Middle French cageoler (“chatter like a jay”) (from gajole, dialectal diminutive of geai (“jaybird”)) + Old French gaioler (“entice into a cage”), which is from Medieval Latin gabiola, from Late Latin caveola (whence English caveola), diminutive of Latin cavea (“cage, coop, enclosure, stall”). More at cage, cave, cavum, cavus, and jail.

Cajun

French

An English respelling of Acadien ("Acadian"), reflecting how the French-Canadian settlers who moved to Louisiana pronounced the word in their dialect.

cake

Old Norse

From Old Norse kaka, related to Swedish and Icelandic kaka — an old Germanic word whose ultimate origin is disputed.

cakewalk

Origin · 1800

Originally a strutting dance performed by African American communities in the 19th century, often in competitions where the winning couple was awarded a cake. Because top dancers made it look effortless, "cakewalk" came to mean anything easy.

cal

Origin

A clipped form of "calcium hydroxide" — shortened the way chemical names often get trimmed in casual or trade use.

calabash

Origin

From French calebasse, from Spanish calabaza (“gourd; pumpkin”), possibly from Arabic قَرْعَةٌ يَابِسَةٌ (qarʕatun yābisatun, “dry gourd”) or directly from its etymon Persian خربزه (xarboze, “melon”), possibly ultimately from Sanskrit त्रपुस (trapusa, “colocynth fruit”) (compare Persian تربزه (tarboze, “watermelon”)). The English word is cognate with Catalan carabassa (“pumpkin; orange colour”), Galician cabaza (“gourd, pumpkin, squash; calabash (container)”), Occitan calebasso, carabasso, carbasso, Portuguese cabaça (“gourd; calabash (container)”), Sicilian caravazza (and caramazza).

Calabria

Ancient Greek

From Ancient Greek Kalabría, the name applied to this southern Italian region.

Calais

Latin

From French Calais, tracing back to a Gaulish tribal name recorded in Latin as Caletum.

calamander

Origin

From Sinhalese [script needed] (kaḷu-madīriya), perhaps from Coromandel ebony (see coromandel), changed by association with Sinhalese කළු (kaḷu, “black”); or perhaps a metathetic variant of coromandel via Dutch kalamanderhout.

calamari

Latin

From Italian calamari, the plural of calamaro, going back to Latin calamarius (related to calamus, "reed" or "pen"), likely from the squid's ink and pen-shaped internal shell.

calamitous

Origin

Borrowed from French calamiteux (“calamitous”) (see French -eux, English -ous), from Latin calamitōsus (“destructive, disastrous, ruinous, calamitous”), a contraction of calamitātōsus, from calamitāt- + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of; prone to’ forming adjectives from nouns); calamitāt- is the oblique stem of calamitās (“disaster, misfortune, calamity; damage, harm; loss”), from *calamis (“damaged”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂- (“to beat; to break”)) + -tās (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition or state). By surface analysis, calamity + -ous.

calamity

Latin

From Latin calamitas, meaning "damage" or "disaster."

calamus

Origin

Learned borrowing from Latin calamus (“reed, cane”). Doublet of culm, haulm, helm (Etymology 4, stalk), qalam, and shawm.

calcareous

Origin

Learned borrowing from Latin calcārius (“of or pertaining to lime”), derived from calx (“lime”). Similar to calcium.

calceate

Origin

From Latin calceātus, participle of calceāre (“to shoe, to provide with shoes”), from calceus (“calceus, shoe”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix), from calx (“heel”) + -eus (“-y”, adjective-forming suffix). Equivalent to Latin calceus + -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

calceolate

Origin

From Latin calceolus (“little shoe, slipper”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix), from calceus (“calceus, footwear”) + -olus (diminutive noun-forming suffix), from calx (“heel”) + -eus (adjective-forming suffix).

calcite

Origin

From Latin calx + -ite.

calcium

Latin · 1808

Coined in 1808 by the chemist Humphry Davy from Latin calx, "lime," since the element occurs naturally in limestone.

calculable

Origin

From calcul(ate) + -able.

calculatable

Origin

From calculate + -able.

calculate

Latin

From Latin calculare, "to reckon," from calculus, "a small pebble" — pebbles were once used as counters for doing sums.