Welcome to our Word Origins Quiz Page
Questions
- Which fruit gets its name from an Aztec word meaning testicle?
- What well known word comes originally from denoting a Roman soldier's allowance to buy salt?
- 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?
- Which car comany's name comes from the Latin for 'I roll'?
- Which 5-letter word staring with the letter 'g', meaning doing something enthusiastically, comes from the Italian word for taste?
- Which musical instrument gets its name from the Hawaiian words for jumping flea?
- Some dictionaries suggest that which animal gets its name from the Welsh words for head and white?
- Which Asian country's name means 'land of the pure' in its official langauge?
- Which word meaning 'an imaginary society that possesses near perfect qualities of life' was first coined in a 1516 book?
- Which product gets its name from the Hindi word meaning 'to massage'?
- The words admiral, algebra, and apricot come from which language?
- Which chemical element and rare metal's name means "heavy stone" in Swedish?
- Which well known word originates from a Gaelic phrase meaning "water of life"?
- Which Latin word, meaning "of the left", has come to mean threatening or evil in English?
Answers:
- Avocado
- Salt
- Nerd
- Volvo
- Gusto
- Ukulele (from 'uku' meaning 'flea', and 'lele' meaning 'jumping')
- Penguin (from the Welsh pen meaning "head" and gwyn meaning "white")
- Pakistan (means 'land of the pure' in Urdu)
- Utopia (first coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia)
- Shampoo
- Arabic
- Tungsten
- Whiskey
- Sinister
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