top of page

That Oceanic Feeling: A play in etymology

Updated: 4 days ago

" But I would have liked to see you doing an analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment or, more exactly, of religious feeling which is...the simple and direct fact of the feeling of the eternal (which can very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic [comme océanique] )."

Romain Rolland, Letter to Sigmund Freud, 1927.



Immersion

Proto-Indo-European *mesg- (imperfective): to dip, sink


→ Latin mergō (v.): 1. to dip (in), immerse; plunge into water; drown

  2. to overwhelm

  3. to cover, bury

  4. (of water) to engulf, flood, swallow up, overwhelm

  5. (figurative) to hide, conceal, suppress


→ Latin immergō (v.): to immerse, plunge into


→ Latin immersio (n.)


 immerse (v.): 1. to place within a fluid (generally

         a liquid, but also a gas)


         2. to involve or engage deeply


Overwhelm

Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (v.): to curve


→ Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (n.): vault, arch


→ Old English hwealf (adj): arched, concave, vaulted

       hwealf  (n.): an arched or vaulted ceiling


→ Middle English whelmen (v.): to turn over, capsize;

to invert, turn upside down


→  overwhelm (v.): 1. to engulf, surge over and submerge


2. to overpower, crush


3. to overpower emotionally


Unfathomable

Proto-Indo-European *peth (v.): 1. to spread out

           2. to fly


→ Old English fæthm (n.): ‘something which embraces’ ; ‘the outstretched arms’

→ Dutch vadem


→ Middle English fadme (n.): unit of length of about six feet


→ fathom (n.): a unit of length equal to six feet, chiefly

      used in reference to the depth of water


→ fathom (v.): to measure the depth of water

     (figurative) to deeply understand


→ unfathomable (adj.): 1. impossible to measure

(especially of depth)


                        2. (figurative) Impossible to

           grasp the extent of, or to fully

           know or understand


0 comments

Comentarios


bottom of page