David in Austin, Texas, wonders if smithereens, meaning “bits” or “fragments,” as in explode into smithereens, refers to little bits of metal left over from blacksmithing. Actually, the origin of smithereen is uncertain, although it may come from Irish English or Irish Gaelic, but no one’s really sure. It may be related to smithers which also means “small pieces.” A similar-sounding word, shivereens, comes from shiver, meaning “splinter” or “fragment.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Smithereens Origins”
Hi there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how you doing? This is David from Austin, Texas.
Hey, David. We’re doing well. What’s going on?
Well, I want to find out what you guys think about the origin of the word smithereens. I have a theory, and I kind of want to see where that went.
So smithereens is the word, right?
Smithereens.
What’s your theory?
Well, it blew up to smithereens, that kind of thing. It exploded into smithereens. A small particle of a bigger thing, I guess.
Right. What’s your theory?
My theory is that it came from blacksmithing. Little bits of metal that may have been left over after the process of making whatever blacksmiths were making. And those little bits of metal may have been called smithereens just based on the smither or the smith.
It’s an interesting theory. There’s no evidence to support that, but I like it. It’s picturesque.
Yeah, it’s picturesque. So often when it comes to etymology, you can’t trust your eyes. So when a word looks like another word, you need to be really suspicious and actually look harder to prove your theory wrong than you do to prove your theory right.
Smithereens has an interesting story nonetheless, which is that it may come from Irish English and possibly from Irish Gaelic. There’s another word called smithers, which basically means the same thing, small pieces, that it may come from with an “-ing suffix. And so this is all kind of complicated.
I will say this about smithereens. Regardless of whether or not it is actually Irish, it is firmly owned by the Irish at this point. The Irish believe it is theirs. People attribute it to the Irish. It’s something that appears in Irish literature and Irish poetry. It’s just firmly Irish.
So it is now owned by the Irish regardless of its original source. And I’m fine with that. That’s totally how words work.
I would think so because of the eens part, you know, being Irish. On the other hand, you know, the e could have been that diminutive suffix where it’s an even smaller lither, that kind of thing.
Yeah, there are related words like smattering and smothering and smithering that seem to be really similar to this. But again, we have this real morass of dates where the ones that come first don’t seem to support the theories that were long held to be true for smithering. And this is a problem. More evidence is clearly needed.
And I hope that my word research colleagues are out there doing it because I’ve reached my limits. I haven’t found anything further on it.
I want to leave you, David, with one more word, one variant, which I quite like. For some reason, this word really pleases me, and it’s shiverine. And the reason I like it is I like the idea that you’re smashing something to shivers, which is kind of a way of smashing it to slivers.
Does it sound like shiver?
Yeah, S-H-I-V-E-R. Shiverine.
Oh, that is good.
Okay, great. Thank you very much for your help.
Yeah, our pleasure. Thanks for calling, David.
Thanks. Bye-bye.
Bye.
Bye, David.
