The verb to eke, as in to eke out a living or eke out a win, derives from Old English eaca, meaning “addition” or “supplement.” The expression an eke name, or literally “an additional name” was later altered by misdivision into neke name, and finally nickname. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “An Eke Name, Nickname”
I’ve been thinking about the word eek as in to eek out a living or eek out a win.
Some people misspell it as eek, but it’s actually eke, and you don’t see it that much.
It’s from an old word that means augmentation or an increase.
It comes from Old English eeka, meaning addition or supplement, and that makes it a relative of words like auxiliary and augment, a very distant relative of those words. But it also is buried inside another more common English word, which is nickname.
I thought you were going to get there.
Yeah, yeah. Originally, nickname was an eek name. That is an additional name. And then through the process of misdivision, an eek name became a nickname.
So the A-N dropped its N, went from the article A-N to the word eek and became a nickname, nickname.
Yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, a great example of misanalysis of a word.
You know, I’d love to hear people’s nicknames, by the way.
We’ve never really talked much about those.
That might be a good call out.
What do you think?
Oh, I think it’d be a wonderful one, Gertie.
Okay, Martita.
If you’ve got a clever nickname, what do they call you and why do they call you it?
Let us know.
We’d love to hear the story.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
