Fossil Words

 

[In paleontology, the study of the forms of life existing in prehistoric times, a fossil is any preserved evidence of ancient life, including shells, imprints, burrows, coprolites, and organically-produced chemicals.  This includes the mineralized (converted to a mineral; petrified) remains of an animal or plant.

[Fossil words are words that have largely fallen out of common use but still survive in idioms and set phrases.  Evan Porter, a professional writer with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Towson University (Towson, Maryland), explains how this happens:

Though English has technically existed for well over a thousand years, today’s modern version of the language is nearly unrecognizable from its roots in Old [mid-5th century (around 450 CE) to the late 11th century (around 1066 or 1150 CE)] and Middle English [1100/1150 to 1500].  Over time, words and phrases evolve and transform in both pronunciation and meaning.  New words are created, and many older words die out.

Some antiquated words, however, manage to survive the passage of time even if they're not regularly used in everyday conversation or writing.  How can they hold on without ever actually being used?  By being “fossilized.”

“A fossil word is a word that appears primarily in the context of a specific phrase.  Words can become fossilized either because they grow antiquated or because they're replaced by other words in common speech.  But the phrase in which they appear remains,” says author and etymologist Jess Zafarris in a TikTok video[.]

—“19 nearly-extinct 'fossil words' that only survive hidden inside these specific idioms,”

Upworthy, 10 December 2025

[Etymology, which is an important aspect of the formation and eventual fossilization of fossil words, is the study of the sources and development of words and their components.

[Readers of Rick On Theater may know that I’m both a wordie and a language geek.  (I even contributed a few times to William Safire’s [1929-2009] “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine [1979-2009].)  When I was working on the recent post on “Sign Museums,” and I was looking into the history of Moxie, the soft drink popular in New England, and the etymology of the noun ‘moxie’ that came from the drink’s name, I came across Jess Zafarris’s blog Useless Etymology, I found it attention-grabbing. 

[Oddly perhaps, I’d never heard of fossil words.  After reading Zafarris’s book excerpt on the subject, I decided to share it with ROTters.  So, first, here’s her brief discussion of fossil words, followed by a few additions from other sites I located on the ’Net.]

“ETYMOLOGICAL EXCAVATION: WHAT IS A FOSSIL WORD?”
by Jess Zafarris 

[Posted on Useless Etymology, Jess Zafarris’s blog, on 11 November 2025, this article is drawn from her 2025 book, Useless Etymology: Offbeat Word Origins for Curious Minds (Chambers, 2025), an exploration of unusual word histories.]

A fossil word is a word that primarily appears in the context of phrases or idioms. It typically comes attached to other words. The phrase survives even when the word itself becomes antiquated and rarely appears on its own.

Think about the phrase “to and fro.” “Fro” was a preposition and adverb meaning “away” or “backwards.” It almost never appears on its own, but “to and fro” remains in wide use.

Another example is the word “bated” in the phrase “bated breath.” It’s a past participle form of the word “abate” [to make or become less in amount, intensity, degree, etc.] but that form is not typically used in English unless it’s attached to the word “breath.”

Although the word “bide” can still be found independently in some English dialects [to mean ‘to endure,’ ‘stay,’ or ‘wait’], it’s heavily associated with the phrase “bide one’s time” in American English. It’s related to the words “abide” and “abode,” and both are from the Old English bidan, meaning “to stay, live, or remain.”

“Lam” is rare outside of the phrase “on the lam,” and its origin is a bit mysterious. In the Elizabethan era it was both a verb meaning “to beat,” and a noun meaning a heavy blow, so “on the lam” which was originally American crime slang, might imply the same thing as the term “beat it” does when it comes to running away. It’s also thought to be related to the word lambast. To “lambast,” which was originally pronounced and spelled “lambaste” (and still is in some cases, depending on your region) combines that lam verb, to “beat,” with a 17th century sense of the verb “baste,” which comes from Old Norse [spoken across Scandinavia and spread through Viking settlements, including the British Isles, from roughly the 8th to 13th centuries] and also means to thrash someone.

Both spic and span are fossilized in the phrase “spic” and “span.” A spic is a nail, and span is a word for a wood chip. The phrase refers to something that’s freshly cut by a workman’s hands, like a brand-new nail from a smith or perhaps like a fresh cutting from a lumberjack. Both of these are Germanic and probably from Old Norse. “Span new” is recorded as a variation on “brandnew” in the 1600s.

“The whole shebang” is another etymological mystery. We do know that Walt Whitman [1819-92] used the word “shebang” as a word for a shelter in his 1862 prose work “Specimen Days”:

“Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, &c. Sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes.”

It may also be related to various words for taverns; in Irish, Scottish and South African dialects, a speakeasy or illicit tavern might be called a “shebeen.”

The “lo” in “lo and behold” is a generic Old English exclamation. It’s probably an imperative of the word “look” or in Old English loken. But you might also use it as a greeting, or if you’re surprised, or if you need to express joy or grief. Sounds like it’s all about tone of voice.

“Caboodle” is fossilized in the phrases “kit and caboodle” and “the whole caboodle.” The first of these phrases is predated by similar terms such as “kid and cargo” and “kit and boodle.” An earlier version of the phrase “the whole caboodle” was simply ”the whole boodle.” “Caboodle” and “boodle” both mean “collection,” with the ca- on caboodle probably operating as an intensifier, implying a really big boodle. Both are thought to be from the Dutch ter[m] boedel, meaning “property.” The “kit” in “kit and caboodle” is, of course, the modern word for any collection of items used to repair, maintain, or make another item, or all the clothes and equipment needed to perform a task or play a sport [this usage is common in British English]. It too is probably Dutch in origin, from the term kitte meaning a “wooden vessel” or a wooden ship. Hence “kit and caboodle” implies “the whole ship and its cargo.”

Sometimes fossil words are only semi-fossilized. The word “figment” can certainly be used independently to describe something invented, but it most often appears in the phrase “figment of your imagination.” The word “inclement” is rarely used outside of the phrase “inclement weather,” from the Latin [clemens, clementis], “mild, placid.” “Turpitude” rarely appears outside of the phrase “moral turpitude.”  This word is from the Latin turpis meaning vile, foul or ugly. So moral turpitude is utter depravity and vileness.

Another form of semi-fossilization: The word “dint” is a predecessor to the word “dent,” which remains in use as a word for a small indentation or defect. You may have read this word in historical or fictional accounts of people wearing armor; a small indentation in armor is often a dint rather than a dent. Similarly the little indentations in coconuts are often called dints instead of dents. But there’s also the idiom “by dint of,” meaning “by means of,” and in this context dint is fossilized because this is the only scenario in which “dint” has this definition. But both usages have the same origin: A dint (or in Old English, dynt) was a blow dealt in a battle, just like we see in the armor sense, so in the context of the phrase “by dint of” it suggests the force by which a blow or other action is carried out. So, you might receive a dint in your armor by dint of fighting in a battle. “Dent” came along later (early 14th c.) from the same etymological source as “dint,” but “dent” became the preferred spelling in the 15th century due to influence from Latin-derived words like indent and indentation.

Much ado about ado

Another fossil word worth a more detailed excavation is “ado.” Nowadays, it’s most often found in the phrases “without further ado” and “much ado about nothing,” which survived thanks to the name of the Shakespearean comedy. But did you know that the word “ado” is a contraction—and an infinitive?

As you probably know from your grade school grammar lessons, an infinitive is the base form of a verb, the form it takes when it’s not conjugated [to inflect (a verb) for each person, in order, for one or more tenses; to vary the form of (i.e., to inflect) a word to express tense, gender, number, mood, etc.]. In English, we pair unconjugated verbs with the word “to” to create the infinitive.  An infinitive phrase is something like “to walk,” “to go,” “to speak,” or “to do.” The word “to” usually acts as a preposition, but in infinitive phrases, it acts as what we call a particle [known as the sign of the infinitive]. This usage of the word “to” came around in Middle English as an adaptation of the word “to” in the Old English dative case.

[The dative case is the grammatical form for the indirect object of a sentence, the person or thing that receives the direct object or who benefits from the action. Modern English doesn’t have the dative case in the declensions (the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives); we use the objective case (the accusative case in languages such as Latin, German, and Russian) with a preposition such as ‘to’ or ‘for’ to form a prepositional phrase: I gave the letter to her; or I gave her the letter.

[(In the examples, the pronoun her and the prepositional phrase to her are the indirect objects; the direct object, the person or, in this instance, the thing acted upon, is the noun the letter. In German, the sentence would read: Ich gab ihr den Brief; the word ihr is the dative case of sie, the nominative or subjective case of the pronoun ‘she.’ The phrase den Brief is the direct object and is the accusative or objective case of der Brief.)]

But English also has some influence from Old Norse thanks to the Vikings. For an example of why this matters with the word “ado,” let’s take a look at Norwegian, which is a modern Nordic language. Norwegian infinitives are generally introduced by the particle å, which is cognate with the English word “at.”

So, if Middle English had had more influence from Old Norse, our modern infinitive particle could very well have ended up being “at” rather than “to.” So instead of “to speak” or “to walk,” we could have ended up having “at speak” and “at walk” as infinitives. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the word “ado,” which is a contraction of “at” and “do.”

So why does “ado” mean a commotion or a big deal? Well, you know how sometimes when there’s a lot of drama or commotion, or someone throws a big event, we sometimes say that it’s “a big to-do” or “a whole to-do”? Using this infinitive like this i[t] literally suggests that there is a lot to do or a lot that has to be done.

In the phrase “a big to-do,” the infinitive phrase “to-do” is cosplaying as a noun. “Ado” functions the same way, but it uses that Norse-influenced infinitive structure, with “at” in place of “to,” and then it’s contracted to “ado.” Ado is the older word, first recorded in Norse-influenced areas of northern England, and “to-do” arose later in the 16th century, taking over in a lot of contexts.

[Jess Zafarris’s Useless Etymology: Offbeat Word Origins for Curious Minds is available for purchase from various online (Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble) and physical retailers.  It provides an accessible deep dive into etymology for a general audience and covers topics like ‘astronaut’ meaning ‘star-sailor,’ ‘companion’ meaning ‘sharing bread,’ and the etymology of ‘trivia,’ making it an engaging read for word lovers.  

[Zafarris presents this with wit and whimsy, arguing that understanding word origins provides “superpowers” for language.  Reviewers praised it for debunking common myths and highlighting the global, cross-cultural influences on the English language. 

[Zafarris, a popular etymology content creator, is known for her TikTok posts (@jesszafarris) and blog (uselessetymology.com), where she shares similar content.]

*  *  *  *
EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH FOSSIL WORDS

champing

Phrase: champing at the bit (excited for something)

Definition: This is just a variation of “chomping.” Often, people will in fact say “chomping at the bit” instead, but this is considered an eggcorn, which is a language mistake often caused because someone has heard an idiom incorrectly.

vim

Phrase: vim and vigor (full of life)

Definition: Energy, excitement. But you’d never say someone is full of just “vim.”

kith

Phrase: kith and kin (friends and family)

Definition: a person’s friends, acquaintances and basically anyone you know who isn’t covered by “kin.” Kith has also found a second life as the name of a retail establishment.

[Established in 2011 in New York City, Kith (sometimes stylized as KITH) is a lifestyle brand and specialty retailer that offers seasonal collections of men’s, women’s, and children’s apparel, accessories, and footwear. It now has outlets all over New York, the U.S., and the world.]

loggerheads

Phrase: at loggerheads (in a heated, dead-locked dispute)

Definition: a foolish person. Today, the word only survives as the name of a certain breed of turtle, a certain breed of bird and a few locations in England. It’s not entirely clear how “at loggerheads” started referring to two people having a disagreement.

deserts

Phrase: just deserts (to get what one deserves)

Definition: what one deserves. Sometimes — but rarely — someone will refer to “deserts” without the “just,” yet they’re almost always a pairing. The fact that “deserts” (the comeuppance) is pronounced differently from “deserts” (the biome) leads many people to mistake it for “just desserts.”

wedlock

Phrase: out of wedlock (in a state of not being married)

Definition: in a state of being married. This word fell out of fashion because it’s simple enough to say that someone is married or not. But the euphemistic phrase “a child born out of wedlock” (which is still frowned upon in many parts of the world) has kept this word alive.

knell

Phrase: death knell (a sign of the end of something)

Definition: the sound of a funerary bell. Historically, people would literally ring a bell to alert the world that someone has died. Sometimes this was called a “passing bell” or a “death bell.” This isn’t a particularly common practice anymore, but it lives on in this idiom.

dudgeon

Phrase: in high dudgeon (enraged)

Definition: a state of indignation. No one seems to be in low dudgeon anymore, though.

hither

Phrase: hither and thither (all over the place), hither and yon (in disparate directions), come hither (come here, usually seductively)

Definition: toward this place. “Hither” is one of the rare fossil words that has survived in multiple different phrases. In most other contexts, “hither” is pretty easily replaced by “here,” which is similar but not the same. “Here” refers to an exact location, but “hither” refers to a direction toward an exact location.

petard

Phrase: hoist by their own petard (to be destroyed by your own weapon)

Definition: a small bomb. “Hoist” also isn’t particularly common, and it means “to be raised” (usually by pulleys, but sometimes by a petard). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the works of William Shakespeare are the source of a number of idioms that hold fossil words. The phrase “hoist with his own petard” was originally used in a speech in Hamlet (Act 3, scene 4).

[The original spelling of Shakespeare’s line was “hoist with his own petar” (no d).  This may have something to do with the etymology of the word, which is derived from the French word péter, which means ‘to fart.’ It’s a reference to the noise the small bomb makes when it explodes.]

ken

Phrase: beyond one’s ken (outside of one’s knowledge)

Definition: a person’s knowledge. While this word is not very common in English, you’ll find it in Scots as a verb meaning “to know.”

amok: from the Malay word amuk; often seen in the phrase “run amok,” ‘to run about with or as if with a frenzied desire to kill.’ Hard to be amok without running.

ruth: ‘pity’ or ‘compassion’; used in “ruthless,” meaning ‘lacking compassion.’

wreak: ‘to inflict or execute’ (punishment, vengeance, etc.); primarily used in “wreak havoc,” ‘to cause considerable confusion, disorder, or damage.’ Hard to wreak without havoc.

asunder: ‘into separate parts; in or into pieces’; as in “torn asunder,” meaning ‘to be pulled or ripped violently into separate pieces’

bandy: really two words: meaning 1: ‘to pass from one to another or back and forth’; ‘give and take’; ‘trade’; ‘exchange’ as in “bandy about”; meaning 2: from a Scots word, bandy, meaning ‘bowed’ or ‘curved outward,’ “bandy-legged” means ‘bowlegged’

beck: from Middle English bekken meaning ‘to signify’; ‘beckon,’ ‘beck’ means ‘a gesture used to signal, summon, or direct someone’ and appears in the expression “at one’s beck and call”; the verb form “beckon” is still common in non-idiom-specific use

betide: ‘to happen to’; ‘come to’; ‘befall’; as in “woe betide you/us/them”

eke: from Middle English eke (‘to add to,’ ‘augment’; ‘to increase’); used in “eke out,” meaning ‘to obtain with difficulty or effort’

fettle: as in “in fine fettle”; the verb, ‘to fettle,’ originally meant ‘to put things in order,’ ‘tidy up,’ ‘arrange,’ or ‘prepare,’ so to be in fine fettle means to be 'in excellent health, spirits, or condition,'  The original verb remains in specialized use in metal casting ('to remove sand from a casting'; 'to repair the hearth of an open-hearth furnace').

helter skelter: 'in a haphazard manner'; 'without regard for order,' as in “scattered helter-skelter about the office”; Middle English skelten, ‘to hasten’

madding: ‘’making mad’; ‘maddening’ as in “far from the madding crowd”

math: from Middle English, ‘a mowing’; ‘aftermath’: what comes after the mowing, usually of strongly negative connotation, implying a preceding catastrophe

scot: in Middle English, a local tax, originally paid to the lord or ruler and later to a sheriff; historically in Britain, “scot free” meant “exempt from royal tax or imposts.”  By extension, it later came to mean “without consequences or penalties” or “free without payment.”

sleight: an artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation; the phrase “sleight of hand” refers to the skill in feats requiring quick and clever movements of the hands, especially for entertainment or deception.

shrive: “To hear or receive a confession”; preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: ‘shrift’ in “short shrift,” meaning “to give little and unsympathetic attention to,” and ‘shrove’ in “Shrove Tuesday,” the final day of Shrovetide, which marks the end of the pre-Lenten season; it’s observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession, the ritual burning of the previous year’s Holy Week palms, and finalizing one's Lenten sacrifice

wend: as in “wend your way,” meaning “to proceed on your way,” although its former past tense “went” is still in use as the past tense of “to go”

yore: “time long past,” as in “of yore,” usually (but not exclusively) “days of yore”

[To fill the list out, I added some fossil words from posts from Babbel. Reddit, and Wikipedia.

[I have several other posts on ROT that cover words and etymologies (e.g.: “Short Takes: Word Origins & Other Derivations” [4 July 2010]), as well numerous posts on writing.]