Anonymous User asked: Do you have a favorite word etymology, or one you find particularly interesting?
Sorry for the slow reply: it's been a heavy week, and I wanted to ruminate. I don't have a single favourite, but one that sticks in my head—I apologise if you knew this—is that it's often said that gun appears to have stumbled into English because there was once a very large crossbow called Gunilda, and a short-form of the name became a useful way to refer to any large, powerful projectile weapon.
The Gun- element of Gunilda does go back to an Old Norse word for battle, so the word's sort of fitting—though probably no one would have known this when the new meaning emerged.
This etymology's not certain, though it's certainly tempting. As we have no smoking gun, the crossbow's name could in fact pun on some pre-existing form of gun that hadn't made it into the surviving written record. The OED (entry revised March this year) offers one or two other guesses, but nothing that seems more convincing.
One of the word's appearances in later Middle English also forms one of my favourite weird moments in Malory: when Mordred betrays Arthur, Guinevere takes refuge in the Tower of London, which Mordred attacks:
he layde a myghty syge aboute the Towre and made many assautis, and threw engynnes unto them, and shotte grete gunnes.
Malory doesn't indulge in much serious imagination of historical difference, so the anachronism may or may not be conscious. But this is the only time gunpowder weapons appear in Le Morte Darthur.
