Word: origin
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...connection with the editorial which appeared in our last issue, and which defended the application of the term "'varsity" to our college teams, we wish to offer the following brief account of the origin of the word in question. The word "'varsity" comes to us from the English universities. It was first used on the "bumping-course" at Oxford, where the "bargemen" dubbed the Oxford University eight, "the 'Varsity." This word was speedily adopted by the college men at large, and before long it made its appearance in America...
This short explanation as to its origin adds another word in defence of the continued employment of this disputed term. - Princetonian...
...word freshman is of very ancient origin, being derived from the old Sanscrit root, fhra, signifying raw, green, innocent, fresh. Compounded with the Saxon word Man, it becomes a synonym of infantile innocence and unworldliness, and is universally applied to individuals of a tender age when they first enter collegiate halls of learning...
...pursuit, all using the same instruments and holding before them the one great aim of mental improvement, we see at once from analogy that it would be perfectly natural for a set of cant phrases to come into use, and to occupy a unique position. And this is the origin of our slang. But as to its use. It is possible that our slang words express, it is true not in pure Saxon, a class of ideas not to be expressed in ordinary language. In other words we have slowly acquired a dialect, comparable to that of Romany, which...
President McCosh, of Princeton, has a curious habit, when disturbed in any way, of chewing the knuckle of his thumb. On one occasion when he had been lecturing on the relations of good and evil of the world, he was asked by some inquisitive divinity student to explain the origin of evil. Replied the president, with a strong Doric accent: - "Well, ye have asked me a vera deeficult question. All the feelosophers of antiquity have tried their hand at it. Sookrates tried it and failed; Plato did no better. Descarites, Spinoza and Leibnitz were obliged to confess...