it’s also yummy

  • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    According to etymonline,

    Lax. Noun. “salmon,” from Old English leax (see lox). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, German Lachs, Danish laks, etc.; according to OED the English word was obsolete except in the north and Scotland from 17c., reintroduced in reference to Scottish or Norwegian salmon.

    It’s weird in that lax died ~400 years ago, then was borrowed back ~100 years ago into American English from Yiddish-speaking immigrants.

    It’s a weird loanword in that it was a loaned obsolete word that underwent some semantic narrowing in the loan.