Interesting or unexpected word origins

[jtur88]

Threads like this often drop off the bottom of the page due to lack of momentum, but it might be interesting to try.

For starters, I looked up "to dote on someone":

Origin:
1175–1225; Middle English doten to behave foolishly, become feeble-minded; cognate with Middle Dutch doten.

[Ohiogirl81]

Love does make one behave foolishly at times.

[jtur88]

Many roads in and around Kentucky and Tennessee are called "pikes". Which is a shortened form of "turnpike", a limited access road.

turnpike
c.1420, "spiked road barrier used for defense," from turn + pike (2) "shaft." Sense transf. to "horizontal cross of timber, turning on a vertical pin" (1547), which were used to bar horses from foot roads. This led to the sense of "barrier to stop

pike
a shafted weapon having a pointed head, formerly used by infantry.

So, a shafted weapon was mounted on some roads to turn away unauthorized traffic, forming a "turnpike", shortened back to "pike" in some regions to refer to the road itself.

[Rob Allen]

The word "tawdry" derives from a specific person: Etheldreda, or Aethelthrȳth, Queen of Northumbria, who died in 679. She was canonized and her name modernized, so she is known in modern English as Saint Audrey. She was the patron saint of the town of Ely, and at the annual fair in Ely there was a tradition of selling lace scarves called "St. Audrey's lace". Audrey had been known for her fine neckwear, and ironically died from a tumor in her neck. The scarves at the fairs originally were high-quality, but over time became cheaper and gaudier, and the term "St. Audrey's lace" was shortened to "tawdry lace", and since then the word "tawdry" has been used for something cheap and gaudy.