Origin and history of wadi

The place name contains the Spanish form of Arabic wadi "river" which occurs in other Spanish place names (such as Guadalajara..., from Arabic Wadi Al-Bajara "River of the Stones," either a parallel formation to or ultimately a translation of the ancient...Iberian name for the river that gave the place its earlier name, based on caruca "stony;" Guadalquivir, from Arabic Al-Wadi...

reward," from Frankish *wadja- or another Germanic source (compare Old English wedd "pledge, agreement, covenant," Gothic wadi..."pledge"), from Proto-Germanic *wadi- (see wed (v.))....

"done mechanically or without interest or zeal and merely for the sake of being rid of the duty of doing it; done so as to conform to the letter but not the spirit," 1580s, from Late Latin perfunctorius "careless, negligent," literally "like one who wishes to get through a thing,

c. 1200, from Old English gamen "joy, fun; game, amusement," common Germanic (cognates: Old Frisian game "joy, glee," Old Norse gaman "game, sport; pleasure, amusement," Old Saxon gaman, Old High German gaman "sport, merriment," Danish gamen, Swedish gamman "merriment"), said to

"wasteful expenditure," especially by the government under guise of public good, April 1935, American English; earlier it was a name for a kind of braided leather lanyard made by Boy Scouts and worn by them around the neck or hat. In this sense it is attested from 1930, and accor

Middle English shrine "repository in which a holy object or the relics of a saint are kept," from late Old English scrin "ark (of the covenant); chest, coffer; case for relics," from Latin scrinium "case or box for keeping papers," a word of unknown origin. A widespread Latin bor

in Greek mythology, a demigod (son of the Titan Iapetus) who made man from clay and stole fire from heaven and taught mankind its use, for which he was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where a vulture came every day and preyed on his liver. The name is

1680s, "not confined to or following any one model or system," originally in reference to ancient philosophers who selected doctrines from every system; from French eclectique (1650s), from Greek eklektikos "selective," literally "picking out," from eklektos "selected," from ekle

"very dark red or crimson color," 1791 (marone), from French couleur marron, the color of a marron "chestnut," the large sweet chestnut of southern Europe (maroon in that sense was used in English from 1590s), from the dialect of Lyons, ultimately from a word in a pre-Roman langu

"garment for men, covering the lower body and each leg separately," 1610s, earlier trouzes (1580s), extended from trouse (1570s), with plural ending typical of things in pairs, from Gaelic or Middle Irish triubhas "close-fitting shorts," of uncertain origin. Early recorded use of