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umpire

The origin and history of umpire.

Etymology

From a Middle English mishearing of "a noumper" as "an oumper" — the same kind of word-boundary shift that gave us "an apron" from "a napron." It ultimately traces to Old French nonper, "not equal," since an umpire is the odd, tie-breaking third party.

Origin: Old French

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Etymology: FreeDict original editorial.