A.Word.A.Day --pummel

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Apr 13, 2026

This week’s theme
Words with surprising etymological journeys

This week’s words
pummel

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Art: George Wesley Bellows

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

What if I told you that the word phony has nothing to do with a phone, but rehearsal and hearse are related?

OMG, indeed.

And OMG is older than you might think.

Etymology is full of such surprises. This week we’ll look at five words with fascinating etymological journeys. As you’ll see, a fruit turns into a beating, a dance becomes a song, a marketplace turns into a medicine, and more.

The word phony likely came from fawney, a brass ring used by swindlers as if it were gold.
Rehearsal and hearse share the same Old French root, herce (a rake or harrow). To rehearse was originally to go over something again, rather like raking it over. A hearse was first a spiked frame for candles over a coffin, named for its resemblance to a harrow, before the term shifted to the vehicle carrying the coffin.
The earliest documented use of OMG is from 1917, in a letter to Churchill.

pummel

PRONUNCIATION:

(PUHM-uhl)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To beat or pound, with or as if with fists.

ETYMOLOGY:

An alteration of pommel (the knob at the end of a sword’s handle; the raised front of a saddle), from Old French pomel, from Latin pomum (fruit, apple). Earliest documented use: 1548.

NOTES:

How did a word for an apple end up meaning to beat someone black and blue? The link is shape. From Latin pomum (apple) came pommel, a little apple shape applied to a rounded knob, such as the one on a sword hilt. From there, pommel became a verb meaning to strike with such a knob. Over time, the spelling shifted to pummel, and the sense broadened from hitting with a sword hilt to repeated beating, especially with the fists. This gives a whole new meaning to the term “fruit punch”.

USAGE:

“Iran is now earning nearly twice as much from oil sales each day as it did before American and Israeli bombs started falling on Feb 28th. It may be pummelled on the battlefield, but the regime is winning the energy war.”
The System and the Spoils; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 4, 2026.

See more usage examples of pummel in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Protesting is an act of love. It is born of a deeply held conviction that the world can be a better, kinder place. Saying "no" to injustice is the ultimate declaration of hope. -Amy Goodman, investigative journalist, columnist, and author (b. 13 Apr 1957)

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