- A - | - B - | - C - | - D - | - E - | - F - | - G -| - H - | - I - | - J - | - K - |

- L - | - M - | - N - | - O - | - P - | - Q - | - R - | - S - | - T - | - U - | - V - |

- W - | - X - | - Y - | - Z -

Cannibal
When Columbus first reached America, he made contact with the Tainos, native Indians of whom he spoke as ‘the best people in the world'. There were other Indians whom he liked much less. They were the Caniba. This was just a variant of Carib, the word which then gave origin to Caribbean. Columbus, however, believed that Caniba meant that they were subjects to the Grand Khan, and that confirmed him in his erroneous belief that he had reached India! Columbus initial dislike of the Caniba was then taken up by others. This led to the belief that they were ferocious people and ate human flesh. And that is how the word cannibal emerged. (Flavell & Flavell 2005: 136)

Car
Although the motor car was not developed until very late into the 19th century, the word car had been around since the 14th century, the only difference being that it referred to any wheeled vehicle. The word is yet another case which disproves the popular belief that you need a new word for every new object which appears.

Catamaran
In catamaran, the stress could, in principle, be on any of the four syllables: on the second as in Decameron, on the third as in Aldebaran, on the last as in Desperate Dan, and on the first - where it actually is. (McMahon 2002: 121)

Catastrophic
The word is remarkable in the way it relates to catastrophe. All the vowels in one word are different from the corresponding vowel in the other word. This is largely due to the change of stress. (Davis 2004: 66)

Cat in a hat
English is a stressed-timed language. What does that mean? It allows approximately the same time to elapse between one stressed syllable and the next stressed syllable, no matter how many unstressed syllables there may be in between. As a consequence, cat flap and cat in a hat, which both have two stressed syllables, take up the same amount of time, although there are two more syllables in cat in a hat. French, on the other hand, is not stressed-timed, it is syllable-timed, i.e. it allows the same amount of time for each syllable, no matter if stressed or not. Stress-timing is responsible for the characteristic rhythm of English. (McMahon 2002: 124)

Cattle
Horses, oxen, asses, mules and camels were included under the term cattle in a 13th century manuscript. The word, which was borrowed from Norman French and entered English as catel, could also apply to cows, calves, sheep, lambs, goats and pigs. Earlier, it was used to refer to all kinds of ‘personal property', but as under the feudal system domesticated animals represented wealth, cattle was gradually understood to mean ‘livestock'. As if this weren't enough, the word was once again borrowed from French, this time as chatel, and this gave rise to English chattel, which now means what cattle used to mean! Ultimately, both words go back to Latin capitalis, also the source of English capital. (Flavell & Flavell 2005: 24)

Cell
In The Pillars of the Earth, Brother Philip, one of the protagonists, is made the Prior of a cell. How can you be a prior of a cell? This is only comprehensible if you know the original meaning of cell. Cells were small dependant monasteries a little distance from the abbey to which they belonged. Originally, one of the principles had been that monks should never travel so far from the abbey that they could not return within a day. To wander about outside was not considered good for their souls. This became more difficult when the abbeys accumulated land given by benefactors. And therefore cells were built where the monks could tend to their more distant holdings. The use of cell to refer to a small single chamber in a monastery only developed later, in the 14th century. Then the word was extended to refer to the small single chambers in prisons and then to the small compartments in the body. In addition, cell is also the space where small insects live, a terrorist group, a phone and a piece of equipment to produce electricity. Not bad for such a small thing. (cf. Flavell & Flavell 2005: 40-1)

Chairman
A chairman today is somebody who is in charge of a meeting or who directs the work of a company or organisation. Originally, the chairman was somebody whose occupation it was to carry persons in chairs, something we would today consider a rather minor or even denigrating task but which originally was quite a distinction.

Chamberlain
Curiously, this name, which has a diphthong in the first and a monophthong in the last syllable when pronounced by native speakers, often has a diphthong in the last and a monophtong in the first syllable when pronounced by foreigners.

Chancellor
A word which has two different meanings depending on whether it refers to German or to British politics. In a German context, the word refers to what in other countries is the Prime Minister. In Britain, however, the chancellor is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, i.e. what corresponds to a Finance Minister in other countries. Compare these sentences from two articles in the same edition of a British newspaper (The Independent September 2005): “German conservative leader Angela Merkel has raised the stakes in her poker game to become the country's next chancellor” and “Allies of the Chancellor urged the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his plans to step down”. Incidentally, both sentences deal with the succession to the post of Prime Minister, in one case the Chancellor being the post in question, in the other case the present Chancellor being the candidate for the post in question. If you were to translate the two texts into another language, you would therefore have to use different words.

Chauffeur
A chauffeur is originally ‘someone who heats', derived from French chauffer, ‘heat'. He was the ‘fireman' so to speak on board a steam train, and it was his job to shovel fuel into the boiler so that the machine kept going. The earliest steam-powered motor vehicles worked on the same principle, and in this case the fireman was often identical with the driver. The driver is still called chauffeur although he has long stopped being the ‘heater'. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 262)

Cheesed off
Why you are cheesed off when you are fed up nobody knows, but the idiom is there. It was exploited for punning in advertising when an advertising jingle said, ‘Pour on parmesan when you're cheesed off with potatoes'. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 50)

Chip in
When you chip something in you contribute to something: ‘If everyone chips in, we'll be able to buy a nice present'. The allusion is to poker where players place their chips in the pot thus contributing to the overall sum. Today, it is not only money you can chip in when you use the idiom, but also remarks, suggestions, etc. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 51)

Chiswick
There is a place in Greater London called Chiswick. It means ‘cheese farm'. There is a place is Cumbria called Keswick. It also means ‘cheese farm'. Why, then, is one form different from the other? They are both Germanic forms and clearly related, but one of them, Keswick, lies in an area where the Scandinavians had settled in the Middle Ages. There was no such sound as / t S / in Old Norse. Instead, it preserved the old Germanic /k/ in these words. This is why the two places have a different name today. A similar example is Shipton in Dorset and Skipton in Yorkshire. They both mean ‘sheep farm'.

Close your eyes and think of England
If you want to advise somebody to just put up with an unpleasant situation you can say “Close your eyes and think of England ”. Although this idiom can now refer to all sorts of unpleasant situations, originally it referred to unwanted sexual intercourse. It is ascribed to a Lady Hamilton, who was rather glad that her husband did not call on her as often as he used to do. In her journal she wrote: “When I hear his steps outside my door, I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs and think of England. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 55)

Coffee
How would an alien, were he just to observe us, find out the existence and the meaning of the word coffee? This is much trickier that it sounds. People rarely point to things and say what they are called. And words are seldom used in isolation. If the alien came upon of group of people talking and having coffee, the word coffee may be used but not necessarily. The one with the pot in his hand may just ask “Would anyone like another cup?” or “Would anyone like some more?” Nor would there have to be coffee around if the word was used. Somebody might just ask if somebody else has remembered to put coffee on their shopping list. Where, then, would the alien find the correlations between the word and the thing? (cf. Matthews 2003: 4-5)

Crayfish
In spite of its name, the crayfish is not a fish, but a crab (German Krebs). And a starfish is not a fish either, but a sea creature in the shape of a star with five arms (German Seestern).

Crusade
Sometimes words disappear from a language because the ‘things' they refer to do not exist any more. Words like brougham, gig or hansom were generally well known in the 19th century, but with the vehicles they referred to the words also disappeared. Not quite, of course, they are still there, in the books written at the time, in modern books about the time, in dictionaries, etc. but they do not form part of the general knowledge of contemporary speakers of English. Words do not need to disappear in this way, however. We still have crusades although we do not have crusades any more. At least we don't have crosses of red on our tunics and do not ride shouting "Deus vult!" towards Jerusalem in order to tear it from the enemy. Today we have crusades against smoking, crusades against politically incorrect language or crusades against countries which stubbornly refuse to accept the superiority of democracy and its allies, Coco-Cola, McDonalds, Hollywood and IBM. Not so different from the old warriors after all.

Cunt
In Caernarfon, in North Wales, you hear peole calling each other cunt all the time. It simply means "mate". In other parts of the country, it may be wise not to use the word in the same way. (Crystal 2007: 132)

Cuppa
The contraction cuppa has become quite a common short form of cup of tea. It has long begun to appear in semi-official contexts, on billboards, in signs, in advertisements, etc. This is odd. Why do cup and of form a union? Why has it become associated with the preceding strong syllable, not with the next strong syllable? There is system in the madness: if we pronounce cup+of tea, the second foot will have stress on the second syllable. But this is against the ‘rule' that each phonological foot should start with a stressed syllable. If cup becomes aligned to of , then the problem is ‘solved', and both cup of and tea can be stressed on the first syllable. (McMahon 2002: 125)