Is German Pech a Latin loan, or French poisse a Germanic one? Or do they have a common IE root?
And does German "Pech" as in "tar pitch" have anything to do or is it simply an accidental homonym? Or French "pêché", sin? And how does Dutch "pech", for example "auto-pech", car breakdown, fit in with this?
Edited by: mathilda
English pitch, German Pech in both senses. and French poisse and poix are all the same word, from Latin pix = pitch in the tarry sense. I think it was borrowed into Germanic early, before the Angles and Saxons left the continent. I don't know if the bad luck sense arose independently in French and German or migrated in one direction or the other.
péché is from Latin peccatum. past participle of peccare, to stumble, which is related to ped-, foot.
Dutch is Greek to me. But I suspect that the pech in autopech is the same as Pech in the Unglück sense.
The Latin peccatum is also the source of Spanish, pecado, and I believe the English peccadillo, meaning a minor quirk. I wonder if the English came via Spanish or Italian, or directly from the Latin.
I don't have a Dutch etymological dictionary here, and the online one requires a license.
"Pech" in Dutch ("pekh") in general means bad luck, yes, usually in not so serious contexts. Something like "too bad" or "bummer!".
In the car context, although no doubt the word was originally used to mean bad luck, by now it really means breakdown, as you say, specifically while en route**. (If you can't start your car in the morning, that's not pech. If your car breaks down while on the highway, that's autopech.)
How about impedicāre (to trap, to entangle), the root of impeach and impede (hinder, prevent), and related to empêcher?
**There's something pleonastic about "while en route", but it seems like the "en" in the English form doesn't entirely capture the "while" aspect. Any opinions?
#2 -- peccadillo looks like a Spanish, not an Italian, diminutive to me. And the Italian would have a t. Peccatino or something, if there were such a word.
Impedicare also has the idea of tripping up, related to ped-, foot.
"While en route" sounds fine to me but I think you could leave out the "while". I can't decide now, trying them over and listening to myself.
Does Dutch pech also mean pitch in the naval stores sense?
Does Dutch pech also mean pitch in the naval stores sense?
Almost. It's not pech, but pek.
"Naval stores" is a new term to me. (I looked it up now.) Thanks.
#2 -- peccadillo looks like a Spanish, not an Italian, diminutive to me. And the Italian would have a t. Peccatino or something, if there were such a word.
The Online Etymology Dictionary confirms your suspicions, Vinny. Perhaps it's the double 'c' that makes it look more Italian?
I threw in "naval stores" just for you, shilgia. I figured that either you would feel good at finally seeing a word you thought you had learned uselessly, or else learn something new (albeit useless).
It's one of those words/phrases that you only see in geography class. Like esparto grass and copra. The principal products of Georgia are cotton, peaches, and naval stores. That sort of thing.
I decided I should learn what naval stores actually were, and checked wikipedia which tells me:
Naval Stores is a broad term which originally applied to the resin-based components used in building and maintaining wooden sailing ships, a category which includes cordage, mask , turpentine, rosin, pitch (resin) and tar. n modern usage, the term applies to all products derived from pine sap, which are used to manufacture soap, paint, varnish, shoe polish, lubricants, linoleum, and roofing materials.
(which is about what I thought)
But: What do they mean by mask? The link takes you to mask in the face-covering sense, and even mask (disambiguation) doesn't help.