Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1915 — ORIGIN OF WAR TERMS. [ARTICLE]

ORIGIN OF WAR TERMS.

Curious Bits of History Woven About Arips and Munitions. With the exception of shrapnel, named after its inventor, an English colonel, there are very few '• war terms flow in use which have a British brigin. Sword, musket, grenadier, dragoon are all alien terms. "Grenadier” is -generajyy—supposed to come f’roin the French. The Word is, however, of German birth, and originally was grenatier,” the force owing their name to the hand-grenades with which they were armed. The word “musket” has an Italian derivation: “moschetto,” which was really a species of small sparrowhawk. In ancient times and in the middle ages the name musket was used to designate a small mortar which threw arrows. When gunpowder was invented a small cannon was baptized “musket,” and later the "rifle of . the ordinary infantryman earned the name, while the whole outfit was called “musketeers.”' ■ .. Both “dragoon" and “cuirassier” come from the French. The dragoons had a. dragon painted on their shields aitd the cuirassiers carried a breast protection made of copper—in French “cuivre.”-J ■ "Hussar” comes from the Hungarian word “huzz,” which means “twenty.” The force derived its name irom the fact that long ago every twentieth recruit in Hungary was placed in one of the mounted regiments. The uhlans owe their name to the Turks. It comes from the Turkish word “oglan,” youth. ‘•Sword” comes from the Polish word “s?abla,” and “pistol” from the Italian town Pistoja, which was famous in the middle ages for its arms factories. The bayonet takes its name from the French town Bayonne, where the inventor lived some 125 years ago. * “Howitzer” is derived from the C zech word “houfinice,” a wooden apparatus “used in ancient times for the purpose of throwing stones. We meet with the word also in the Hussite war, in the fifteenth century, where the weapon figures as “haurfnitz.” The officer’s rank of major was derived originally from the Spanish word “mayor,” signifying great or high. , Even “war” itself comes from a foreign source, coming down with the Italian and Spanish “guerra,” and the French “guerre” from the old »Qerman “werra.”—New York American.