The Etymology of 100 Common English Words
Why does "salary" come from salt? Why does "panic" come from a Greek god, "assassin" from hashish, and "window" from a Norse word for wind-eye? English is a linguistic scrapbook — it borrowed from Latin, Greek, Arabic, Old Norse, French, and dozens of other languages over 1,500 years. These are the surprising true origins of 100 words you use every day.
Why English has so many words for the same thing
English has three words meaning roughly "kingly": royal (from French), regal (from Latin), and kingly (from Old English). All three entered English at different times through different conquerors. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French became the language of the court and aristocracy, while Old English remained the language of common people, and Latin came through the Church. This three-layered history — Germanic base, French overlay, Latin prestige layer — is why English has so many near-synonyms and the largest lexicon of any language: roughly 170,000 words in current use.