Month: June 2025

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English language Etymology Expression Language Usage Word origin Writing

Donjons, dungeons, and dragons

Q: I recently came across the use of “donjon” for an inner tower of a castle. I assume the word is somehow related to “dungeon.”

A: Yes, both English words, “donjon” and “dungeon,” are derived from an Anglo-Norman term for a keep, or fortified tower, in the inner court of a castle.

In fact, they were once variants of the same word. Today “donjon” refers to the tower, while “dungeon” means an underground prison in the tower or a similar place.

Here’s how they developed.

The Anglo-Norman word (spelled donjun, dongon, dongoun, etc.) ultimately comes from the classical Latin domnus, a shortened form of dominus (lord), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

When “donjon” first appeared in Middle English writing in the 14th century, it had both meanings—the tower as well as the underground prison.

Here’s the OED’s tower definition:

“A large fortified tower, esp. the great tower or keep of a castle, typically located in the innermost court or bailey, and used as a secure place of refuge, retreat, or imprisonment.”

The OED’s earliest citation for this tower sense, with the term spelled “donioun,” is from a mythical Middle English tale in which the Roman poet Virgil uses black magic to put a man made of brass atop a castle keep:

“Þer biside on o donioun / He kest a man of cler latoun” (“there not far away upon a donjon, he cast a man of bright brass”). From The Seven Sages of Rome, Middle English stories written around 1330.

The dictionary defines the prison sense of “donjon” as “a (small) secure cell, underground chamber, or pit for the confinement of prisoners, esp. in the keep of a castle.”

Oxford’s first citation for this sense is from a medieval homily in which a pilgrim’s soul is imprisoned by Satan, then rescued by St. James and the Virgin Mary:

“His sawel es broht til a donjoun, / Thar it wit outen end sal lend” (“His soul is brought to a dungeon, there without end it shall dwell”). From Northern Homily: Pilgrim of St. James, dated at sometime before 1400, but believed composed around 1300.

The words “donjon” and “dungeon” eventually diverged, as the different spellings took on their different meanings in early modern English.

Finally, the OED notes that the term is now used in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, to mean “any enclosed environment, most typically a complex of underground vaults, tunnels, etc., in which players seek rewards and face dangers.”

The OED’s earliest role-playing example, which we’ve expanded, is from the original 1974 D&D rules, written by the game’s designers, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson:

“A good dungeon will have no less than a dozen levels down, with offshoot levels in addition, and new levels under construction so that players will never grow tired of it.”

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English English language Etymology Expression Language Linguistics Usage Word origin Writing

Let us repair to the boudoir

Q: How did the verb “repair” come to mean to move to another place as well as to fix something?

A: The verbs “repair” (to fix) and “repair” (to go) are two distinct words that have evolved from two different Latin terms.

As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, the mending sense ultimately comes from the classical Latin reparare (to put back in order) while the going sense ultimately comes from the post-classical Latin repatriare (to return to one’s country).

Middle English borrowed the two terms in various spellings, meanings, and forms from Anglo-Norman, Middle French, and Old French.

The OED’s earliest English citation for “repair” to mean “go, proceed, set out, make one’s way” is from Sir Tristrem, a Middle English romance believed written sometime before 1300. Here’s an expanded version:

“Tristrem þouȝt repaire, / Hou so it euer be / To bide: ‘Þat cuntre will y se, / What auentour so be tide’ ” (“Tristrem thought to repair [to proceed], / Howsoever it might be / To abide [endure the giant Beliagog]: / ‘What country will I see, / What adventure so betide?’ ”).

The dictionary’s first example for “repair” used to mean “restore (a damaged, worn, or faulty object or structure) to good or proper condition” is from a Middle English translation of a Latin chronicle of world history:

“At þe repayrynge of Seynt Petres chirche, he wente to wiþ a mattok and opened first þe erþe” (“At the repairing of Saint Peter’s Church, he went forth with a mattock [an ax-like digging tool] and opened first the earth”). From Polychronicon, John Trevisa’s translation, dated sometime before 1387, of an earlier 14th-century work by Ranulf Higden.

Standard dictionaries now recognize both the fixing and going senses of “repair,” but the going sense (as in “Let us repair to the boudoir”) is now considered old- fashioned and sometimes used humorously.

Merriam-Webster online, for example, describes the use of “repair” to mean “go to (a place)” as “old-fashioned + formal,” and has this example: “After dinner, the guests repaired to the drawing room for coffee.”

The dictionary adds that the going sense is “sometimes used humorously,” and has this example: “Shall we repair to the coffee shop?”

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English English language Etymology Expression Language Phrase origin Usage Word origin Writing

Channeling the talking heads of yore

Q: Where does the expression “talking head” originate from? And why has it become so pejorative?

A: When the term first appeared in the mid-19th century, it referred to mythical robotic talking heads purportedly created by medieval scientists.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the original sense of the term as “a legendary automaton resembling a human head, supposed to have been able to speak and answer questions put to it.”

The dictionary’s earliest “talking head” citation, which we’ve expanded, refers to a brass head supposedly created by the polymath, philosopher, scientist, and Franciscan friar Roger Bacon in the 13th century:

“Roger Bacon, having succeeded in making a talking head, was so wearied, says the chronicler, with its perpetual tittle-tattle that he dashed it to pieces” (from The Examiner, a London literary weekly, Sept. 16, 1848).

In The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1594), a play by Robert Greene, Bacon describes his supposed plan to create an artificial talking head with the help of infernal forces:

“What art can work, the frolic friar knows; / And therefore will I turn my magic books, / And strain out necromancy to the deep. / I have contrived and framed a head of brass (I made [the demon] Belcephon hammer out the stuff).”

However, Bacon falls asleep before the head begins to speak, and his helper, the poor scholar Miles, belatedly awakes him: “Master, master, up! Hell’s broken loose; your Head speaks; and there’s such a thunder and lightning, that I warrant all Oxford is up in arms.”

By the time Bacon gets up, the head has fallen to the floor and broken, and he laments his loss: “My life, my fame, my glory, all are past.”

As it turns out, the idea of a talking head dates back to ancient Greece, where it was a popular theme in mythology. The most famous example is the legend of Orpheus, a Thracian bard whose severed head continued to sing mournful songs after his death.

Getting back to reality, the modern sense of “talking head” as “a speaker on television who addresses the camera and is viewed in close-up,” appeared in the mid-20th century, according to citations in the OED.

The literal “talking head” here is the televised head and shoulders of the person talking. The dictionary’s first example is from an Ohio newspaper:

“It’s easy to come up with just ‘talking heads’ on the TV screen. We have to fight this all the time” (The Middletown Journal, June 5, 1964).

Why, as you’ve noticed, is the term “talking head” often used in a derogatory way, as in the citation above?

Oxford Reference, an Oxford University Press website, suggests that “talking head” is “often used in a pejorative sense because the use of such commentators in a visual medium suggests an over-reliance on ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing.’ ”

We’d add that the TV talking heads may be viewed negatively as people reading scripts, often written by others, rather than expressing thoughts of their own.

Incidentally, as we’ve noted elsewhere, a TV talking head is sometimes called a “gob on a stick” in British English.

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