Newsy etymology: haboob, dictator, cracker, barrel, engagement, de minimis

I needed a break, Radish Mashers, from dissecting the derivatives in the headlines. 

I couldn’t give over all of my curiosity—rooted, as it is, in joy and wonder—all the time to doom, gloom, and you know whom. 

But I’ve picked up my periodic etymological news roundups this week with a bulleted bulletin of the origins of haboob, dictator, cracker and barrel, engagement, and de minimis.

Haboob

A fearsome dust storm, called a haboob, mowed over parts of Arizona on Monday. (Sublime—in the Burkean sense.)

Etymology of haboob

• First recorded in English in 1897
• Originally specifying dust storms in the historic Sudan region
• From the Arabic habūb, “strong wind” or “violent storm”
• Written in Arabic as هَبُوب
• Based on a verb meaning “to blow, rage”

Dictator

Trump, a president in a constitutional republic, keeps trial-ballooning dictator. (That’s Latin for “no es bueno.”)

Etymology of dictator

• First recorded in Old English as tictator
• From the Latin dictātor, “dictator, chief magistrate”
• Originally referred to a magistrate in Ancient Rome with absolute power, appointed in an emergency for six months
• By the 1570s, dictator had extended to “a person exercising absolute authority in any realm”
• By the 1590s, dictator settled into its political sense for “an absolute ruler, especially one that displaces democratic government”
• Dictātor is based on dictāre, “to reiterate, say repeatedly, dictate,” source of dictate
• Dictāre is a frequentative form of dīcere (“to say, tell”), source of diction, dictionary, contradict, predict, and many other English words
• The Latin -or is an agent noun suffix (doer of the specified verb)

Cracker & barrel

The country-store-themed restaurant modernized, then reverted, its logo after increasingly politicized backlash. (Barrels of fun, all that.)

Etymology of cracker

• Literally “one that cracks”
• First recorded in 1509 for a “braggart, liar”
• The “thin, crisp wafer” sense dates back to 1739
• Based on crack, from Old English cracian, “to resound” 
• Cracian is of Germanic origin and likely imitative
• The -er is an agent noun suffix (doer of the specified verb)
• The origin of the American English derogatory term for a poor white Southerner is a story for another day (but it’s attested in 1766)

Etymology of barrel

• First recorded around 1300
• From French baril, “barrel, cask”
• Has cognates across the Romance languages but its ultimate origin is obscure
• Connections have been attempted to the noun bar and verb bear

A brief, etymological history of Cracker Barrel

Soda crackers (saltines) were indeed once shipped to general stores (country stores) in barrels to prevent them from breaking in transit. 

As the story goes, the barrels were repurposed as tables and gathering points for social interactions—a history the Cracker Barrel restaurant, founded in 1969, seeks to evoke in its name and logo.

The Oxford English Dictionary records cracker barrel in 1877, also noting the noun has been used attributively to describe a plain-folk, down-home attitude—presumably like Uncle Herschel, the name of the man featured, removed, and returned to Cracker Barrel’s logo.

Fun fact: Cracker Barrel restaurants are known for the triangular peg games they put out on every table. The game is a form of peg solitaire, which is evidenced as early as 1697 during the reign of Louis XIV.

Engagement

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got engaged. The announcement went mega-viral. (Where were you when you heard the news? My wife called me while I was walking to work. That was it. That was the call.)

Etymology of engagement, engage

• Engagement is recorded in 1600s for a variety of senses but with original meaning of “pledging or mortgaging a property”
• The marriage also emerges in the 1600s
• Based on engage, found in the 1400s, similarly meaning “to pledge (oneself or one’s property in some way)”
• Sense development to betrothal is through “formal promise, contract, obligation”—that is, committing oneself
• Engage is from French engager, “to bind (oneself), pledge, pawn”
• The base engage is gage, of Germanic origin and related to wage and wed; Germanic w‘s evolved into regional French g‘s

De minimis

On Friday, the US ended a longstanding de minimis exemption for imports at $800 or less. (Yep, really focused on the big picture.)

Etymology of de minimis

• Literally, “of smallest things”
• De is a Latin preposition for “of, about” and minimis is a form of minimus, “smallest, least,” superlative of minor
• Shortened from the Latin legal expression de minimis non curat lex, “the law is not concerned with trivial matters,” dating back to 1661
• First recorded in short form as 1792, expanded to refer to insignificant, negligible, or token matters
• Idea of the de minimis exemption is to avoid the expense of collecting small amount of import duties