A “butt” was a Medieval unit of measure for wine. Technically, a 'buttload' of wine is about 475 liters, or 126 gallons.
10
The word 'mile' is derived from the Latin word for 1,000 - the number of paces it took the average Roman!
6
The technical term for a cat’s hairball is a “bezoar.”
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The word 'mortgage' comes from a French law term that means 'death pledge'.
14
In Turkish, the bird we call a Turkey is called "Hindi" ("from India"). In India, it's called "Peru." In Arabic, the bird is called "Greek chicken"; in Greek it's called "French chicken"; and in French it's called "Indian chicken." The bird is indigenous to none of these places.
44
Anuptaphobia is the fear of staying single.
11
There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”:
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
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