Etymologies for Halloween Monsters

Etymologies for Halloween Monsters

Yes this is a straight forward as can be etymological  article on Halloween Monsters some are  obvious and seen in many a horror movie and I inca few surprises as I like the world of cryptozoology

Witch

That's start with the word Witch comes from old English according  to the Oxford English Dictionary it refers to a male not a female practitioner of sorcery and magic also known as wicca .
Neopagan  religion bears the same name ,many think it maybe  Germanic meaning awaken or holy it only over centuries that it changed from man too women probably no small part to persecution of woman  believed  to be witches.

Werewolf

Yet again from old English the Oxford English Dictionary dates it back to 1000 bc were it was used amongst Scottish speakers
Were is an old English word for man maybe related  to Latin word vir meaning man.
Of course it goes without saying Werewolf is a man who turns into a wolf but thier are many were creatures, bears,tigers, foxes,hyenas.

Frankenstein

Despite many believing the monster created is Frankenstein thier are wrong as its Victor Von Frankenstein who creates and gives life to the creature in the 1818 Mary Shelly novel.
Frankenstein is a German surname it's means more or less stone of the Frank's.
Franks or free man were a germanic Tribe and myth states Mary Shelly was inspired to write her classic novel by travels to Germany near Frankenstein Castle.

Vampire

The word Vampire is not known in the English language until the early 1700s were it was burrowed from a French which  taken from Slavonic source by way of Hungary.
It's said it comes from Turkish Word Uber meaning witch.
Dracula is related to dragons.

Mummy

In 1400s it referred to bituminous substance used  as a medicine to prepared from  mummified human flesh.
In French Mommie and Latin  Mumia are also named a substance to embalm corpse s.
The Latin was burrowed  from  a leading medieval school of medicine, Salerno,Italy.
It's mumia was from the Arabic mumiya it is said to preserve Persian root meaning wax.
It was not until 1600s that was known to be used for Egyptian mummification.
It was Boris Karloff who gave us the movie monster in 1930s Hollywood Horror film.

Ghoul

Comes from Arabic Mythology ghoul or ghul robbed graves and eat corpse s.
The verb means to seize and was made famous due to a 1780s translation of an Arabic tale.

Goblin

May have originality been from the Greek Kobolos meaning a kind of scoundrel and the word is documented as a name haunting the city of Evreux in middle ages.
The word came into English by 1350s .
Did you know that the word Hobgoblin which features the word Hob comes from a shortened nickname for Robert and also  Robin Goodfellow is English puck was many believe a Goblin.

Demon

From Ancient Greek, diamon significance is a god,divinity, attendant spirit or verb meaning divide.
The Ancient Greek s envisioned Fates divvying out people’s lots in life hence word fate, Demons obviously went to the darkest side and many a Greek author used it to translate Hebrew terms for baddies from the bibles Old Testament.

Devil

The word is from the Hebrew word Satan which means adversary _obstructor or plotter against.
The Greek word diabolos means one who throws something across the path of another.
Old English it's deofol.

Zombie

The word comes from West Africa it belongs to the Kikongo language spoken in the Congo area .
Nzambi meaning a creator of many Bantu peoples also spirit of dead person.
Zumbi meaning fetish may been a influence on the word.
In the slave trade made a journey to Haiti and the word Zombie appeared in English in 1788 to Describe the spirit s of dead wicked man permitted to wander and torment the living.
Zombie might be from Louisiana Creole word from Spanish sombra, a shade or ghost.

Ghost

In old English gast means spirit good or bad the h came about via the Dutch and Flemish.
Germanic languages, possibly all coming from an Indo-European root referring to fear or amazement. Ghost settles into its modern meaning—an apparition of a dead person—in the 14th century.

Sasquatch

. Another name for Bigfoot, Sasquatch likely comes from the Halkomelem language, spoken by many First Nations in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The word entered English thanks to a 1929 article in Maclean’s that quoted an “old hunter” as saying “The strange people, of whom there are but few now—rarely seen and seldom met ... are known by the name of Sasquatch, or, ‘the hairy mountain men.’”

Yeti

According to Etymonline, even though the creature looms large in our imaginations, it comes from the Sherpa yeh-teh, a “small manlike animal,” though it might more literally be rendered as “rocky bear.” And thanks to a 1921 journalist reporting on a Mt. Everest expedition, we have the Abominable Snowman. The journalist translated the Tibetan metoh kangmi, another name for the Yeti, as “abominable snowman.” Later, he explained that he had gotten it wrong, and it more closely meant “filthy snowman”—though decades after that, an alternate explanation emerged that metoh and kangmi were just two words for the same animal.

Finally you don't have see a monster to know if thier are real as if we saw a living dinosaur it would be a monster to us .
Hope you enjoyed this Halloween treat.
By Mark Antony Raines