Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Cheese Lover

Origin of turophile

Turophile a rare word not only in meaning but also in its spelling.  The combining form -phile is very common in English, but the combining form turo- is unique: it comes from the Greek noun tȳrós, which is nearly always Romanized as tyro-, as in the technical term tyrosine (an amino acid).  Tȳrós comes from a complicated Proto-Indo-European root tēu, tewe, teu, tū "to swell, coagulate, be or become thick": for the Greeks cheese was "thickened milk."  The Latin word būtȳrum "butter" is a borrowing from Greek boútyron "butter," literally "cow cheese."  Būtȳrum "butter" was adopted by the West Germanic languages, e.g., Old English butere, English butter, Dutch boter, Old High German butera, and German Butter.  Turophile entered English in the 20th century.

-- From Diciontary.com's Word of the Day for 19 June 2018

No comments: