Episode 286: Diapers

(Piano music) 

Hello and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go! 

Before we begin, a shout-out to fellow thespian and loyal listener, David Charles for bringing today's word to my attention. A word with such an interesting and complex history . Thanks David!

Δια (dia) means 'through' or 'across' and Ασπρο (aspro) in modern Greek , means 'white'. And here's the tricky part, 'asper' is the Latin word for 'rough' (hence 'asperity' in English) but it was also used for the shiny coins of small denomination in Greek Byzantium because their engravings were rough. They were called 'aspro'. And because of that, a fabric that was white and bright with patterns woven onto it, was also called 'aspro';  but the Greeks needed distinguish between the coins and the fabrics so they added δια (dia) to the word, which means a fabric with patterns across it. As time went by and white fabrics started being used to clean babies the word went back to Latin as 'diasprum', to the French as 'diapre' -not used anymore- and in English from the Greek ΔΙΑΣΠΡΑ/DIAPERS

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