Comedy is a genre of entertainment that makes us laugh, but this wasn’t always the case. The word derives from a Greek compound that most likely meant "revel song," and it's culturally rooted in an ancient festival called ... the penis parade

Does ‘tragedy’ come from a root word meaning suffering? Despair? Heartache? No, no, and no. It most likely comes from a Greek word meaning ‘goat-song.’

In Ancient Greece, ‘tyrant’ was originally a morally neutral term for someone who usurped the throne and took over leadership on his own terms, not necessarily a cruel ruler.

The English language has a lot of suffixes for different ethnicities. Someone can be Chinese, Indian, or Scottish. Today’s episode uncovers why English has so many different suffixes for ethnicities and nationalities.

Borrowed from a Dutch word meaning ‘pirate,’ ‘filibuster’ originally referred to Americans who organized unauthorized military invasions of Spanish colonies in Central America and the West Indies.

‘Candidate’ derives from candidus, the Latin word for ‘white,’ which describes the typical attire worn by Roman politicians running for office.

The presidential inauguration is a tradition inherited from the Ancient Romans. The word derives "augury," the Ancient Roman practice of interpreting omens based on the flight patterns of birds.

The letter C has split personalities. Sometimes it has a hard K sound, sometimes it has a soft S sound. Sometimes it's a part of letter combinations whose pronunciations vary from word to word. The causes of these split personalities are rooted in a complicated history that begins in Ancient Phoenicia.

In languages around the world, there are two main etymological categories for tea: te-derived and cha-derived. Both ultimately derive from different dialects of Chinese, and the geographical distribution of their derivatives tell us a lot about the history of the tea trade.

What’s the connection between human culture and agriculture? Culture and cults? Culture and colonies? The word’s etymology provides some telling insights.

The spelling of ‘two’ is un-phonetic. Where does that W in the middle come from?

‘Cologne’ is named after a German city, yet it has a French name. Why does Germany spell ‘cologne’ with a K while English spells it with a C?

‘Sinister’ derives from a Latin word meaning ‘left,’ as in, ‘left-handed.’ The connection between evil and left-handedness is surprisingly ubiquitous in languages around the world.

What do the etymologies of ‘translation’ and ‘flea market’ have in common? They’re both loan translations.

‘To beg the question’ is a phrase that originates in the works of Aristotle, but our modern sense of the phrase has resulted from nearly two millennia’s worth of mistranslations.

For the Ancient Athenians, ostracism was not a sociological phenomenon, but an electoral vote that sought to protect the integrity of democracy.

Amateurs get a bad name, but the word ultimately derives from the Latin word for ‘love.’

Handicap is a contraction of ‘hand in cap,’ a popular Medieval bartering game. How did it come to denote a physical or mental disability?

Why do we say ‘mice’ and not ‘mouses?’ The answer lies in an ancient linguistic heritage that predates Modern English by thousands of years.

Prison cells, brain cells, battery cells, and cell phones all share a common etymology that can be traced back to the unlikely source of medieval monasteries.