Answers · #9 · Wed 28 Oct 2026
#9 answers: Hidden Origins Day
Where do names come from? Today digs into the roots of body words, country names, foods and everyday things. Most of the stories hold up. One origin story was made up.
Each round had two true, sourced statements and one fake. Fakes are marked “Made up by AI · not true”. Don't repeat them as facts.
Round 1
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
The English word 'muscle' comes from Latin 'musculus', which literally means 'little mouse'.
A rippling muscle under the skin was thought to look like a mouse moving about.
“[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mūsculus, diminutive of mūs, mouse; see mūs- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: muscle(opens in a new tab) - Fake
'Candle' comes from Candidus, a Roman lamp-maker whose busy shop is said to have sold the very first wax candles.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Be suspicious of neat 'named after the first maker' stories: candles were in use long before any one shop. 'Candle' comes from the Latin verb 'candere', to shine.
- True
The name of the daisy comes from two Old English words that meant 'day's eye'.
The flower opens with the daylight and closes at night.
“[Middle English daisie, from Old English dæges ēage : dæges, genitive of dæg, day; see agh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots + ēage, eye; see okw- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: daisy(opens in a new tab)
Round 2
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
Erik the Red is said to have named Greenland that way in the hope that a pleasant name would attract settlers.
The story comes from the Icelandic sagas.
“After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers.”
Wikipedia: Greenland(opens in a new tab) - True
Argentina takes its name from 'argentum', the Latin word for silver, a metal early explorers hoped to find there.
The Spanish and Portuguese linked the region with legends of silver mountains.
“The name Argentina derives from the Latin word argentum, meaning "silver".”
Wikipedia: Argentina(opens in a new tab) - Fake
Australia is named after an Austrian explorer who was the first European to map its coast in the 1600s.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: 'Austral' means southern, as in 'aurora australis', the southern lights. The name comes from the Latin for 'unknown southern land'.
Round 3
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
The word 'avocado' goes back, through Spanish, to 'āhuacatl', a word in the Aztec language Nahuatl.
The fruit is native to Mexico and Central America.
“The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate, which derives from the Nahuatl (Mexican) word āhuacatl [aːˈwakat͡ɬ], which goes back to the proto-Aztecan *pa:wa.”
Wikipedia: Avocado(opens in a new tab) - True
'Dandelion' comes from the French for 'lion's tooth', named after the plant's jagged leaves.
In French the flower was 'dent-de-lion'.
“[Middle English dent-de-lioun, from Old French dentdelion, from Medieval Latin dēns leōnis, lion's tooth (from its sharply indented leaves)”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: dandelion(opens in a new tab) - Fake
'Lemon' comes from a Spanish sailors' word for 'little sun', brought back with the fruit from the Americas.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Lemons came from Asia and were grown around the Mediterranean centuries before Columbus sailed. The word reached English through Arabic and Persian.
Round 4
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- Fake
'Mattress' comes from a Latin word for the straw-filled sacks that Roman soldiers slept on.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Hard to reason out: a tidy 'Roman soldiers' story is a common sign of a made-up word history. 'Mattress' comes from an Arabic word for a cushion or a place where something is thrown down.
- True
The word 'lord' comes from an Old English word that literally meant 'loaf-keeper'.
The head of a household was the one who guarded the bread.
“First recorded before 900; Middle English lord, lover(e)d, Old English hlāford, hlāfweard literally, “loaf-keeper”; see loaf 1, ward; cf. lady ( def. )”
Dictionary.com: lord(opens in a new tab) - True
The word 'tulip' seems to come from a Turkish word for a turban, because the open flower looked like one.
The word 'turban' comes from the same Turkish source.
“The Turkish word for a turban seems to have been used for the flower in western European languages because a fully opened tulip was thought to resemble a turban, the typical headwear of men in the land where tulips originated.”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: tulip(opens in a new tab)
Round 5
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
When the word 'algebra' first came into English, it was used to mean the setting of broken bones.
It comes from Arabic 'al-jabr', meaning restoration, as in putting broken parts back together.
“[Middle English, bone-setting, and Italian, algebra, both from Medieval Latin, from Arabic al-jabr (wa-l-muqābala), the restoration (and the compensation), addition (and subtraction)”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: algebra(opens in a new tab) - True
The pupil of your eye is named from a Latin word for 'little doll', after the tiny reflection seen in it.
Look closely into someone's eye and you'll see a tiny version of yourself.
“[Middle English, from Old French pupille, from Latin pūpilla, little doll, pupil of the eye (from the tiny image reflected in it); see PUPIL1.]”
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: pupil(opens in a new tab) - Fake
'Avalanche' comes from an old Alpine word meaning 'white thunder', after the roar of sliding snow.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Hard to reason out: poetic word histories like 'white thunder' are a common sign of invention. 'Avalanche' is linked to a word for 'ravine' and possibly a Latin verb meaning 'to slip'.