Fun words and their origins:

Karaoke – The fusion of two Japanese words: kara (“empty”) and oke (“orchestra”).

Sarcasm – From the late Latin sarcasmus, which comes from the Greek sarkasmos, which comes from sarkazein—literally, “to bite the lips in rage.”

Cute – A variation of acute, first appearing in the early 17th Century.

Sardonic – Variation of earlier sardonian, alluding to a Sardinian plant, which, when eaten, was supposed to produce convulsive laughter ending in death.

Angst – A German word that has been around, in one form or another, as long as the language has been around. The original word comes from the Indo-European root angh-, meaning “Tight, painfully constricted, painful.” Other derivatives include anguish, hangnail, and anxious.

Sin – Originally from the Indo-European root es–, meaning “to be.” Other derivatives include yes, essence, absent, and is.

Vagina – From the Latin vagina, meaning “sword sheath.” (This one just begs a feminist reading.)

San Diego – From the German sandiego, which of course means “a whale’s vagina.”

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