Easy Etymology 1: Butter - Butanoic acid
What’s the etymological link between your thumb and a cow?
Butter!
The word butter appears to come from the word boutyron.
Boutyron means cow-cheese.
Bous is Greek for Cow, and Tyros is Greek for cheese.
Tyros comes from an even more ancient word, “Teue”.
Teue means “to swell”, because cheese forms when milk clumps together.
Teue is also the root for our thumb, because...well, because it looks like a swollen finger.
One of the most powerful conquerors of all time was Alexander the Great.
A quick side note on his name. His name means "protecting men". Alexein is "protect" and ander is "men". That's why neo in the Matrix was known as Mr Anderson. Within the Matrix he was the son of man.
We translated bous to cow earlier, but in this context, it’s Ox. The Cephalus root is head. So Bucephalus means Ox head.
There are two legends as to why he was called ox head: one was due to its unusually large size and another was the branding of the horse.
You’ve probably heard of cephalopods. They are a class of animals with tentacles attached to their head. So that name means head feet.
Tripods sort of look like cephalopods but instead of having a head feet they have three feet.
How did butter get its name?
Where does the word butter come from?
Where does the word butane come from?
#protoindoeuropean #etymology #unclejegz