rauchen

[lethargic_man]

iddewes blogging about the Räuchermännchen her boyfriend gave her made me wonder where the word rauchen came from in German, as it's evidently a different word to the English "smoke". And the answer is: it's related to the English word "reek". Heh; etymology in sync with my reaction to smoking (tobacco).

(A moment's further thought reveals the English word must once have had the same meaning as the German, as shown by the name Auld Reekie for Edinburgh.)

Comments

[iddewes]

Hmm hadn't thought about that before and from what I heard about Edinburgh back then it must have been pretty stinky as well as smoky! But yeah seems 'rek' was 'smoke' in Middle English http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reek