Common English Words That Used to Mean Something Else in the Past

While revising a novel, fantasy writer Ellie Blackwood discovered the origins behind five common English words that had different definitions from those in the past. She also noted that a couple of them wound up evolving to mean the opposite of their original definitions. One example is the word “egregious”.

The word egregious a Latin word meaning something good or exceedingly excellent. The reason we now use egregious to mean something outrageously bad is probably because people were started using egregious ironically during the 16th century.

Blackwood also gave several examples of blended words, explained the origin of the ampersand, and defined distinctly British words.