Welcome to our Word Origins Quiz Page

Questions

1. Which fruit gets its name from an Aztec word meaning testicle?
2. What well known word comes originally from denoting a Roman soldier's allowance to buy salt?
3. Which word meaning an intellectual person with perhaps a lack of social skills comes originally from the name of a creature in Dr. Seuss's 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo?
4. Which car comany's name comes from the Latin for 'I roll'?








5. Which 5-letter word staring with the letter 'g', meaning doing something enthusiastically, comes from the Italian word for taste?
6. Which musical instrument gets its name from the Hawaiian words for jumping flea?
7. Some dictionaries suggest that which animal gets its name from the Welsh words for head and white?
8. Which Asian country's name means 'land of the pure' in its official langauge?
9. Which word meaning 'an imaginary society that possesses near perfect qualities of life' was first coined in a 1516 book?
10. Which product gets its name from the Hindi word meaning 'to massage'?
11. The words admiral, algebra, and apricot come from which language?
12. Which chemical element and rare metal's name means "heavy stone" in Swedish?
13. Which well known word originates from a Gaelic phrase meaning "water of life"?
14. Which Latin word, meaning "of the left", has come to mean threatening or evil in English?

Answers:

1. Avocado
2. Salt
3. Nerd
4. Volvo
5. Gusto
6. Ukulele (from 'uku' meaning 'flea', and 'lele' meaning 'jumping')
7. Penguin (from the Welsh pen meaning "head" and gwyn meaning "white")
8. Pakistan (means 'land of the pure' in Urdu)
9. Utopia (first coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia)
10. Shampoo
11. Arabic
12. Tungsten








13. Whiskey
14. Sinister