Baby, it's cold outside, and with the wintry weather often comes icicles. We know how icicles are formed: on very cold but sunny days, some snow or ice will melt, drip off a roof, and then refreeze, and when this happens enough times in the same spot, a pointy column of ice appears. Now, that basic science stuff is all fine and dandy, you say, but we logophiles want to know how the word icicle was formed. Well, the roots of the noun wind all the way back to the Old English gicel, which meant “ice.” Middle English borrowed the Old English but changed its spelling to ickle and used it to mean “icicle.” Then sometime during the thirteenth century, Middle English speakers added is, their word for ice, to the front of ickle and formed the compound isykle, which thus literally meant “ice icicle.” It wasn't until around 1325 that the modern form icicle finally appeared, somewhat disguising the word's doubly cold tautologous ancestry.
©2018 Michael R. Gates
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