The first time I ever heard ferly used was in a song by an American singer, and I assumed (incorrectly) that it was the American version or our term “Feral” (for wild and uncouth people. {Oft times now called Bogans too!})
Thus I was somewhat surprised when reading the Word of the Day for Sunday, October 23, 2011, to find that Ferly had both a different, (although somewhat similar) meaning and a long and proud history tracing back to both Old English and German
Thus, ferly, pronounced “FER-lee”, means,
1. Something unusual, strange, or causing wonder or terror.
2. Astonishment; wonder.
Or something::
1. Unexpected; strange; unusual.
Thus Ferly, instead of being the latest Hip word of our generation, is in fact derived from Old English fǣrlīc meaning fǣr (fear) and -līc (-ly). It is related to the German gefährlich meaning dangerous.
So again now you know both what ferly means and what it doesn’t mean.
What are some other words that you know or have used in the past, only to find they don’t actually meant what you first thought they meant?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment