Discussing the origins of words and phrases, in English or any other language.
this week in Greek class we learned the vocab word πεμπω, or pempo, which means 'to send' or 'to bid a thing to be carried to one'. Which sounds an awful lot like a pimp. But! when looking up their possible connection most people have not considered this. Is this a possible root? or does it come from somewhere else?
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The OED just says “late 16th century, of unknown origin”
Merriam-Webster suggests pimp is "probably akin to British dialect pimp small bundle of sticks, Middle English pymple papule, German Pimpf young boy, kid, literally, little fart, Pumpf, Pumps fart"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pimp
Someone needs to tell people over at r/ich_iel
literally a pfimpf year old, is it, five ~ fünf "5", regional fimpf, see also Piefke derogatory for a German, PIE \penkwos, Lat. cinquo, see also chico, etc.
can't jail a five year old so they make good pedler in the streets to acquire customer for the mams
I'm making an interactive website for exploring etymology, and here're my results so far: https://imgur.com/a/5HK1yjJ
Right now it only looks at wiktionary, and only ancestors, but I'm gonna add a lot more features soon
Somewhat related, the word prostitute comes from the Latin pro-stitutio which loosely means to stand in front of something, which is what the women in front of brothels did as they looked to get customers inside.
I was just looking at my bilingual whiskey-flavoured popcorn bag and noticed the French “pimpant” as the translation for “dapper”. Is there a possible connection there?
Thanks for having a random cool thought a whole year after I posted this! I looked it up, and I see that "pimpant" is listed in etymology of pimp. They don't know for sure where the word pimp came from but it's their best guess.
Compare Danish pampe (“to boast, brag”), English to pamper, German pampig ("uncouth")
I am studying Indonesia and the word pimpinan mean leader. That is what made me look up where the term pimp came from.
2 years late but had the same hypothesis;
(Pempein) origin of Pomp
pomp Definition:
ceremony and splendid display, especially at a public event.
Pempo Definition:
to send. to bid a thing to be carried to one. to send (thrust or insert) a thing into another.