Etymology is the study of word origins.  Over time, words pass from one language to another, and etymology traces the path and changes of these words.  Since it’s autumn, we are all getting ready to celebrate Halloween on October 31st.  Do you have your costume yet?  To get us into the Halloween spirit, I thought we would look at the etymology of some important Halloween vocabulary.
 First is the word “Halloween” itself.  This word comes from the old English word “hallow”, meaning “holy”.  The Catholic church had a special day every November 1st to celebrate the holy people of the church, so this festival as known as “All Hallows Day”.  “Hallows evening”, the night before “Hallows Day” eventually became shortened to “Halloween”. 
 The word October comes to us from Latin.  In the ancient calendar, there were only 10 months.  So October was the eighth month.  From “oct” we get words related to eight, such as “octagon”, and “octopus”.  When Europeans started to follow a twelve month holiday, they kept the name October for same month of the year, even though it was the tenth month of the new system. 
 Even the word “candy”, which we get lots of on Halloween, has an interesting story to tell.  It came into English from the French ”çucre candi”, which meant “sugar candy”.  However, where did the French get it?  Etymologists trace the French word back to the Arabic word “qandi”, which the Arabs took from the Persian word “qand”, which meant “cane sugar”.  Pretty amazing history, right?
 How about the witch and her broom?  For those two we have to look to German.  “Wicca” meant someone who practiced magic, and the English word for the modern religion of people who follow ancient magic religions is still known today as Wicca.  “Broom” came from the German word “brombeere” which meant blackberry.  Many brooms were made from blackberry bushes and using the broom at certain times  of year was considered bad luck, so gradually the broom became a sign of evil witchcraft. 
 You can learn a lot about the history of English by looking up word origins.  Most of them have very interesting stories!  A good website for learning about etymologies of English words is http://www.etymonline.com.  Have a happy Halloween!