English is an Indo-European language which evolved from Old English (Anglo-Saxon), a West Germanic language. Over the past thousand years, English has acquired words from many different languages. In addition, the meaning of words has also changed over the past thousand years. The acquisition of new words and the changing meaning of old words provides some insights into our changing attitudes, ideas, and concepts regarding gender. Listed below the squiggly thing are the etymologies of a few gender-related words.
Boy/Girl:
The English word “boy” probably comes from the Anglo-Norman word “abuie” or “embuie” which came from the Old French “embuier”, which meant “fetter.” The Old French term, in turn, came from the Latin “imboiāre” which is a compound verb based on the Vulgar Latin “boiae” which meant “leather collar, fetter.” The early meaning of “boy” in English was “male servant,” someone who was kept in leather fetters. In other words, “boy” referred to a slave. The racist term “boy” when used in reference to an African-American male harks back to this early meaning of the word.
The current meaning of “boy” referring to a “young male” developed during the fourteenth century.
The etymology of the word “girl” is one of the unsolved mysteries of English linguistics. Prior to the fifteenth century, “girl” referred to “child,” not necessarily a female child. At this time the term for a male child was “knave-gerlys.”
Woman:
The origins of the word “woman” do NOT come from the word “man.” “Woman” comes from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) “wifmann” in which “wif” meant “female” and “mann” referred to a person of either sex. “Wifmann” thus meant “female human.” The “wif” part of “wifmann” eventually became “wife.”
In Old English there was a male equivalent to “wif” which was “wer”. Thus “werewolf” originally meant “man wolf.”
Female:
“Female” came into English from the French “femelle” which in turn came from the Latin “femella” which is the diminutive of “feminine” which means “woman.” The root of the word is “fe” which means “to suckle” and which forms the basis of words such as “fecund,” “fetal,” and “filial.” The current spelling with the “a” appeared in the fourteenth century.
It is interesting to note that “female” is not derived from “male.”
Male:
The English word “male” comes from the Old French word “masle” which was derived from the Latin “masculus” which is also the basis for the English word “masculine.” The word “mallard” meaning a “male bird” also comes from this Old French-Latin source.
Harlot:
“Harlot” came into English from the Old French “herlot” or “arlot” which meant “vagabond, begger.” In thirteenth century English it was a masculine term and referred to a boy, a servant, a buffoon, a rascal, a fornicator, or a jester. It could also be used to describe a regular fellow or a good guy. Thus, Chaucer writes:
He was a gentil harlot and a kynbde,
A better felawe sholde men noght fynde.
Sometime in the fifteenth century, “harlot” started to be applied to women: actresses, dancers, jugglers, and prostitutes. The transition of “harlot” from a male term to a female one was speeded up by the Biblical translations which were going on at the time.
The evolution of “harlot” shows not only a change in gender, but also a change from positive to negative which is a reflection of the sexism in the culture in which the male is associated with good and the female is associated with evil or bad.
Whore:
The ancient meaning of “whore” is “lover.” It stems from the Indo-European “qar” which resulted in the Latin “cārus” which means “dear” and which provides the basis of the English words “caress” and “charity.” In Old Irish, “qar” became “caraim” meaning “I love” and in Latvian it became “kārs” meaning “randy, greedy.” In Middle English (prior to the twelfth century), “hore” acquired the meaning of “adulterer” and in the sixteenth century it acquired the “wh” spelling.
Homosexual:
First of all, the “homo” in “homosexual” does not come from the Latin “homo” which means “man,” but from the Greek “homós” which means “same.” The “sexual” part of “homosexual” does come from the Latin “sexualis.” The actual meaning of the word is thus “same sex” rather than “male sex.”