Saturday, April 11, 2009

Master of the Mast

I wonder why the words ‘mast’ and ‘master’ appear to have the same root.
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1 comment:

  1. maraApril 13, 2009 at 2:24:00 PM GMT+2

    Beep,
    wrong.
    They have different origins, thus are not paronymous.
    Mast:
    ORIGIN Old English mæst; related to Dutch mast and German Mast.

    Master:
    ORIGIN Old English mæg(i)ster (later reinforced by Old French maistre), from Latin magister; probably related to magis ‘more’ (i.e., ‘more important’ ).

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