Ministry of higher and secondary

LATIN LEXICAL BORROWINGS

It’s true that English vocabulary, which is one of the most extensive among the world’s languages, contains an immense number of words of Latin origin. Having studied the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology [37, 9-22], we came to the conclusion that there really is a great number of words of Latin roots in the English word stock. This fact can be explained in the following way: Latin loan- words appeared in the English language throughout the time line. Let’s name the most significant stages of the process:
The trend began at those distant times (I c. B. C.) with the words which the West-Germanic tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. These borrowings entered the language due to a direct intercourse and trade relations with the peoples of the Roman Empire. Germanic tribes had to use Latin words in order to name new notions they had not known before.
For instance, such words as «a cap» – from L. L. cappa «a cape, hooded cloak», possibly shortened from capitulare – «headdress» (from L. caput «head»);
«a sock» (n.) – O. E. socc «light slipper», from L. soccus «light low- heeled shoe», variant of Gk. sykchos «a kind of shoe». Teenager slang notion
«sock hop» dated back to c. 1950, from notion of dancing without shoes;
«purple» – O. E. purpul, dissimilation (first recorded in Northumbrian, in Lindisfarne gospel) from purpure «purple garment», purpuren «purple», from L. purpura «purple- dyed cloak, purple dye», also «a shellfish from which purple was made», from Gk. porphyra, of Semitic origin, originally the name for the shellfish (murex) from which it was obtained.

2. words denoting foods:

«radish» – O. E. rædic, from L. radicem, from radix «root»;
«a lobster» – O. E. loppestre, corruption of L. locusta «lobster», literally
«locust», by influence of O. E. loppe «spider», variant of lobbe. (Trilobite fossils in Worcestershire limestone quarries were known colloquially as locusts,
which seems to be the generic word for «unidentified arthropod», as apple is for
«foreign fruit».) Slang for «a British soldier» since 1643, originally in reference to the jointed armor of the Roundhead cuirassiers, later to the red coat;