Ready for Some Time Travel? History of Travel Terms
I’m a bit of a word nerd, and recently I got to wondering about the etymology of some of our most used travel terms. So I went on the hunt and found a treasure trove in the Online Etymology Dictionary compiled by Douglas Harper from a raft of reputable print sources. Here are some of the things I found out.
Journeys, Voyages and Travels
According to the etymological dictionaries at least, we’ve been journeying long before we voyaged or traveled. The word ‘journey’ goes back to the start of the 13th century with the sense of following a defined course. The 14th century word is descended from Old French, via Latin and had the sense of completing one’s day of work.
‘Voyage’ comes from Old French too, via Latin, and had the sense of provisions for a journey before it attained its modern sense of ‘a trip’. The verb ‘to journey’ dates from the 15th century. ‘Travel’ comes from the late 14th century, a descendant of the 14th century word ‘travailen’ meaning to make a journey. It has much in common with the word ‘travail’ and is thought to have had the sense of going on a difficult journey – all journeys were difficult in the Middle Ages.
Interestingly, although people were going places, it wasn’t until the end of the 16th century that people started talking about their travels (giving the sense of an account of a journey – forerunners of travel blogs). And it would be another three centuries (1885) before we got the ‘traveling salesman’.
Vacations and Holidays
The origins of the word ‘holiday’ pre-date those of ‘vacation’. In Old English, a holiday was a holy day, which was a religious festival and day off work. The current spelling dates from the 1500s, while another variant ‘haliday’, no longer used now, dates from the start of the 13th century. In contrast, ‘vacation’ dates from the late 14th century. It comes from Old French via Latin meaning leisure time, a time when you have no duty to do. Its use for times when normal activity is suspended (like for legal processes and schools) appears to date from the mid 15th century, while its use as a replacement for the word ‘holiday’ – and the term most common here in the US – dates from 1878.
Next time, I’ll look at the origins of some common forms of transport.
Tags: holiday, travel, Travel Fun, vacation
November 2nd, 2011 at 6:31 am
[...] week, we looked at the origin of some common travel terms. This week we follow it up with a look at the history of some of the most common forms of [...]