Friday, August 22, 2014

What are some Renaissance-related vocabulary words that start with the letters x, y, and z?Thanks.

There are already some good examples here of words
beginning with y and z.  X is a trickier matter, and you would have to make a serious
case for any word you chose to fit this category in English.  Most words that begin with
x in the English language are of Greek origin and/or were added to the language
centuries after the Renaissance period.   “Xenophobia,” for example, is an early 20th
century construction, and “x-ray” didn’t appear until the
mid-1800s.


By a small stretch you could use “Xmas” for this
entry; it’s first known use was in 1551, X being visually of the same form as the Greek
letter chi, the first letter in Christos, the Greek word for
Christ.


There is also written evidence for the use of the
letter x- rather than sh- or
sch- at the beginnings of words in East Anglian, though this was in
the fourteenth century.  For example the word shall was instead
written xall.  This was not a widespread practice, however, and is
an even further stretch than “Xmas.”

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