The Mythological Origins of Common English Words

Tom Blank of Weird History explains, in his forthright manner, the ancient mythological origins of common modern English words.

Included in this list are the days of the week.

Sunday and Monday are named after the sun and moon, which makes sense, but then we’ve also got Saturday, which is named after the Roman god Saturn. And then, just to shake things up, the remaining four days of the week are named after the Norse gods Tyr (Tuesday), Odin/Woden (Wednesday), Thor (Thursday), and Frigg/Freya (Friday).

He also describes the ancient origins behind such common words as spider, cereal, music, charity, hypnosis, echo, fauna, morphine, erotic, and others.

Just as many common phrases derive from outdated traditions, many common words derive their meaning through their association with ancient mythology …as it turns out there are some much less obvious ones.