Today, the dictionary can be updated with just a few keystrokes online, but even when it was a more arduous process to edit and publish new printed editions, the English language was in a constant state of flux. Many of the most commonly used words today carried entirely different meanings centuries ago. The technical term for this linguistic transformation is “semantic change.” In some cases, it has resulted in shifts so dramatic that the original meaning of a word is entirely different — and sometimes even the opposite — of its current usage. Here, we examine six words that used to mean something completely different, from gender-specific nouns to the changing meanings of “naughty” and “nice.” 

Many people today would like to live a life of luxury, but back in the 1300s, if you told someone you were seeking luxury, you might raise an eyebrow or two. Originally, the English word “luxury” meant “sexual intercourse,” and by the end of the century, “lasciviousness,” “debauchery,” and “lust.” This all came from the Latin luxuria, used to express ideas of desire, excess and deviation from a standard. Shakespeare used the word — in its lustful sense — in the 1600 play Much Ado About Nothing, when Claudio accuses Hero of being unchaste: “She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. / Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.” At some point during the 17th century, the word began to lose its provocative connotation and took on its current usage, referring to great comfort, extravagant living, and the use of wealth for nonessential pleasures. 

Originally, “girl” wasn’t gender-specific. In the 14th century, “girl” or “gyrle” referred to a child or young person, regardless of their gender. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (written in Middle English between 1387 and 1400), when the author refers to the “younge girles of the diocese” in the prologue, he is talking about children in general. “Girl” became specific to females sometime around the early 1500s, and referred to young women or female children by the 1650s.

If you’ve ever thought that “bully” was too soft a word for a playground or workplace oppressor, you might be on to something. The origins of “bully” are found in the 16th century, when it was a term of endearment similar to “sweetheart” or “darling” (possibly taken from the Dutch boel, meaning “lover”). Shakespeare was particularly fond of the word, using it as a term of affection in several of his plays, including Henry V (“I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heartstring I love the lovely bully”), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (“O, sweet bully Bottom!”), and The Merry Wives of Windsor (“God bless thee, bully doctor!”). 

In the 17th century, “bully” evolved, with its meaning declining from “fine fellow” to “blusterer” and then to the entirely negative “harasser of the weak.” This latter meaning is the closest to our current usage of “bully” as someone who intimidates or harms others, especially those they perceive as vulnerable. 

The word “clue” comes from Greek mythology. In the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread, known as a “clew,” so that he can use it to find his way out of her father’s labyrinth. The clew of Greek mythology then came to be used as a word for anything that guides or directs. The spelling “clue” emerged sometime in the mid-15th century, and held on to both of its meanings. In 1869, for example, Hugh Miller refers to “a small clue of yarn” in Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, while Charlotte Brontë, in the 1849 novel Shirley, uses the word in the sense familiar to us today: “You may just inform him that I have got a clue to the identity of one, at least, of the men who broke my frames.” 

“Naughty” derives from “naught,” meaning “nothing,” which leads us to its original usage. In the 14th century, a naughty person was someone who had nothing, being poor or needy. The meaning then evolved — unfortunately, due to its connection with the poor — into something more in line with “morally bad” or “wicked.” From the 1600s onward, the word began to settle into its current, less severe usage of “mischievous” or “badly behaved,” often in reference to children. In the mid-1800s, “naughty” developed a secondary meaning of “sexually promiscuous” — a meaning it still holds today, although it’s normally used in a toned-down, playful manner. 

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Today, “nice” is a perfectly amiable, if somewhat bland, way to state that something or someone is pleasant or agreeable. But the original meaning of the word is very different. It comes from the Latin word nescius, meaning “ignorant.” From there, “nice” went on an epic journey of linguistic evolution. It meant “foolish” or “simple” in the late 13th century, “dainty” or “delicate” around the 1400s, “precise” or “careful” in the 1500s, and then took on its more complimentary significance as “agreeable” or “delightful” in the mid-1700s, before it became “kind” or “thoughtful” by 1830. In another twist, Shakespeare used it to mean “wanton” or “lascivious,”— he refers to dissolute women as “nice wenches” in Love’s Labour’s Lost — although that usage didn’t become widespread. Today, “nice” is a standard, uncontroversial word, only ever frowned upon due to its overuse rather than its meaning. 

The word “namesake” refers to any person or thing that was purposely given the same name as another. For example, a child named after a parent is considered a namesake, as is a company or city named after its founder. It also works in reverse, such as calling a parent named “John” the namesake of their child, John Jr. But why “namesake,” for Pete’s sake? Its origins can be traced back to the 17th-century Bible.

We find the term in Psalm 23:3 of the 1611 version of the King James Bible: “He restoreth my soule: he leadeth me in the pathes of righteousnes, for his names sake.” (The next verse is probably recognizable, even in unfamiliar spellings: “Yea though I walke through the valley of the shadowe of death, I will feare no euill: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staffe, they comfort me.”) In this context, the use of “names sake” has less to do with literally carrying on the Lord’s name, and more to do with carrying oneself righteously in a way that honors God.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “namesake” took on its modern meaning — to be named after someone else — by the 1640s. The word breaks down as such: Namesakes are named for the sake of (meaning “for the purpose of”) another. So if a person is named after their father, for instance, they may be expected to live in a way that honors the reputation of their patriarchal ancestors.

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In modern history, we can look to baseball superstar Ken Griffey Jr. as the namesake of his father, McDonald’s being named for its pair of founding brothers, or Washington, D.C., being named for the first U.S. president. In all of these cases, the namesakes pay homage to those who came before, and carry on their legacy.

The word “portmanteau” was created long ago for a large travel trunk capable of opening into two equal parts. It wasn’t until 1871 that the term was repurposed by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll’s version of a portmanteau was  “a word that blends together the sounds and meanings of two other words” — which is the primary usage today. If you’ve ever asked someone to brunch or checked into a motel, you’ve used one of these mashups. Here are a few of the most common portmanteaus that English speakers use regularly.

This portmanteau combines the words “breakfast” and “lunch” in a delectable combination that denotes the meal that occurs in late morning or early afternoon — usually on weekends, sometimes including alcohol. Brunch menus tend to include both traditional breakfast and lunch fare, as the culinary lines are a bit more blurred than at other meals. 

The earliest use of “brunch” dates to the late 19th century. An August 1, 1896, edition of the British magazine Punch mentions not only brunch, but also “blunch.” It reads, “The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour, is ‘brunch,’ and, when nearer luncheon, is ‘blunch.’” Of course, the portmanteau “blunch” has faded into obscurity, whereas “brunch” has gained in popularity.

The portmanteau “chillax” tells someone to tone it down. It blends together the words “chill” and “relax,” which are synonymous commands, and it became a popular slang alternative when it was coined sometime in the mid-1990s. Now that the ’90s are back in style, “chillax” can be revived for a quick way to warn someone to take it easy without coming across as too stern or formal.

“Motel” is a portmanteau with origins dating back to the 1920s, a time when personal motor vehicles were becoming more popular. It fuses the words “motorside” and “hotel” to refer to a type of lodging with a large parking lot, often built alongside major roadways. Nowadays, the word “motel” describes a style of hotel where each room is accessed directly from the parking lot, as opposed to through a communal lobby like in a more traditional hotel.

Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth II, and Mozart have all been the subject of cinematic biopics — a genre that combines “biographical” with “picture.” Biopics are movies that dramatize real events and tell the life stories of famous figures in an entertaining way. One of this portmanteau’s earliest uses came in a 1947 Variety article about Till the Clouds Roll By — a film about the life of composer Jerome Kern.

The term “smog” is believed to date to 1905, when it was used by scientist H. A. Des Voeux. He coined this term by blending the words “smoke” and “fog” to bring attention to the polluted, hazy skies throughout the British Isles. Today, there are widely considered to be two types of smog. The first is “sulfurous smog,” the type that used to plague London, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The other type is “photochemical smog,” which is prevalent in areas such as Los Angeles, where there’s a high density of motor vehicle emissions.

Everyone seems to have a podcast today, but we may not have had the word for these audio programs if not for Apple’s iPod, as the portmanteau combines “iPod” with “broadcast.” One of the earliest uses, if not the earliest, can be traced back to British author Ben Hammersley, who proposed the term “podcasting” in a 2004 Guardian article about the burgeoning entertainment medium. While iPods are no longer produced by Apple, this portmanteau continues to maintain its lasting appeal.

It’s a spoon … it’s a fork … no, it’s a spork! The history of this spoonlike fork dates back to before the portmanteau was coined. Dr. Samuel W. Francis filed a patent for a sporklike utensil in 1874, though it had the much more convoluted name of “Combined Knives, Forks and Spoons.” The word “spork” later appeared in a 1909 supplement to the Century Dictionary, suggesting it was coined in the intervening years. But it wasn’t until 1951 that the term was registered for a trademark, when inventor Hyde W. Ballard used “spork” to refer to a “combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel.”