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mortar

mortar: [13] Latin mortārium, a word of unknown origin, denoted both a ‘bowl for grinding’ and, by extension, the ‘substance made in such a bowl’. These twin meanings survived through Anglo-Norman morter into modern English mortar as the ‘bowl used with a pestle’ and a ‘building mixture of cement, sand, and water’. The shape of the former led in the 17th century to the word’s application to a ‘short cannon’. The use of mortarboard for a ‘square flat academic cap’ dates from the mid-19th century.