thistleingrey: (0)
thistle in grey ([personal profile] thistleingrey) wrote in [personal profile] cahn 2014-03-27 04:39 pm (UTC)

For granat/similar, they're all borrowing from Latin, and it's not clear whether German got it thence or from French as intermediary. The center actually seems to be
"pomegranate," but the central sense seems to be red splintery-comes-apart thing, insofar as "grenade" (boom!) is related as well. (ETA Cf. "granita," the ice-based treat.)

German borrowing from French: quite a bit in terms of courtly romance, C12-C14. Bits from Latin directly, too--the words for cheese and lawyer (Advocat), e.g., nearly a millennium apart. Some of it has been undone since.

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