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bond: bond: English has two distinct words bond, which started life very differently but have gradually grown together. Bond ‘something that binds’ [13] was originally the same word as band (from Old Norse band), and only gradually diverged from it in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning. The key modern legal and financial senses began to develop in the 16th century, the underlying notion being of something one is ‘bound’ or ‘tied’ to by a promise. Bond ‘bound in slavery’ [14], as in bondservant, is an adjectival use of the late Old English noun bonda ‘householder’, which came from Old Norse bóndi (the second element of húsbóndi, from which English gets husband).

This represented an earlier bóandi, which was originally the present participle of east Norse bóa ‘dwell’, a derivative of the Germanic base *bū- ‘dwell’, (from which English also gets be, boor, booth, bower, build, burly, byelaw, and byre). The semantic association of ‘tying up’ and ‘servitude’ has led to the merging of the two words, as shown in the derivative bondage.
=> band; be, boor, booth, build, byelaw, neighbour
clam: clam: [OE] Old English clam meant ‘something for tying up or fastening, fetter’; it can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic base *klam-, which also produced clamp [14] and is related to climb. There is a gap in the word’s history in early Middle English times, but it reappears at the end of the 14th century in the sense ‘clamp’, and in the 16th century it was applied, originally in Scotland, to the mollusc which now bears the name, apparently on the grounds that its two shells close like the jaws of a clamp or vice.
=> clamp, climb
denouement: denouement: [18] A denouement is literally an ‘untying of a knot’. It was borrowed from French (its first recorded use in English is by Lord Chesterfield in one of his famous letters to his son (1752)), where it was a derivative of dénouer ‘undo’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dé- ‘un-’ and nouer ‘tie’, which came ultimately from Latin nōdus ‘knot’ (source of English newel, node, nodule, and noose).
=> newel, node, nodule, noose
loo: loo: [20] Loo presents one of the more celebrated puzzles of English etymology. Not the least of its problematical points is that there is no reliable evidence of its existence before the 1920s, whereas most of its suggested sources have a more dated air than that. Amongst them, the most widely touted is of course gardy loo!, a shout of warning (based on French gardez l’eau ‘beware of the water’) supposedly used when emptying chamber pots from upper-storey windows in the days before modern plumbing; but that is chronologically most unlikely.

Other possibilities are that it is short for Waterloo, which was a trade name for cast-iron lavatory cisterns in the early part of the 20th century (‘O yes, mon loup. How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset’, James Joyce, Ulysses 1922), and that it comes from louvre, from the use of slatted screens for a makeshift lavatory. But perhaps the likeliest explanation is that it derives from French lieux d’aisances, literally ‘places of ease’, hence ‘lavatory’ (perhaps picked up by British servicemen in France during World War I).
narrow: narrow: [OE] Narrow comes from a prehistoric Germanic *narwaz, whose only other modern representative is Dutch naar ‘unpleasant, sad’ (although it also occurs in Norva-sund, the Old Norse term for the ‘Straits of Gibraltar’). It is not known for certain where it comes from, but a connection has been suggested with Latin nervus ‘sinew, bowstring’ (source of English nerve) and Old High German snuor ‘string’, which might point back to an ancestral sense ‘tying together tightly’.
noose: noose: [15] The notion underlying the word noose is of a ‘knot’, rather than of a ‘loop of rope made with a knot’. The word comes from nos or nous, the Old French descendant of Latin nodus ‘knot’. This was the source of English node [16], of course, and of the diminutive form nodule [16], but it has also made a couple of less obvious contributions to English: dénouement [18], which comes via a French word denoting literally the ‘untying of a knot’, and newel [14] ‘staircase post’, which was borrowed from Old French nouel ‘knob’, a descendant of the medieval Latin diminutive nōdellus.
=> dénouement, newel, node, nodule
pick: pick: English has two distinct words pick. The verb [15], which originally meant ‘pierce’ (a sense which survives in ‘pick holes in’), appears to come via Old French piquer from a Vulgar Latin *piccāre ‘prick, pierce’. Picket [17], which originally meant ‘pointed stake’, is probably derived from the same source (its modern sense ‘guard’, which emerged in the 18th century, comes from the practice of soldiers tying their horses to stakes). Pique [16] is a slightly later borrowing from French. Pick ‘sharp implement’ [14] (as in toothpick) is probably related to Old English pīc ‘pointed object’, source of English pike ‘spear’.

It also lies behind English peak. In view of their close semantic similarity, it seems likely that the two picks share a common ancestor, which was no doubt responsible also for Old French picois ‘pickaxe’, altered in English, under the influence of axe, to pickaxe [15].
=> picket, pique; peak, pike
raft: raft: [15] The ancestor of raft meant ‘beam, rafter’. This was Old Norse raptr. Not until it got into English, apparently, was it used for a ‘craft made by tying logs together’. (It should not, incidentally, be confused with the mainly American raft ‘large collection, lot’ [19], which is an alteration of Scottish English raff ‘rubbish’ – probable source of English raffish [19]. This too may well be of Scandinavian origin – Swedish has rafs ‘rubbish’.) Rafter [OE] comes from a Germanic source that was probably also responsible for raft.
=> raffish, rafter
avoidance (n.): late 14c., "action of emptying," from avoid + -ance. Sense of "action of dodging or shunning" is recorded from early 15c.; it also meant "action of making legally invalid," 1620s; "becoming vacant" (of an office, etc.), mid-15c.
band (n.1): "a flat strip," also "something that binds," a merger of two words, ultimately from the same source. In the sense "that by which someone or something is bound," it is attested from early 12c., from Old Norse band "thin strip that ties or constrains," from Proto-Germanic *bindan, from PIE *bendh- "to bind" (cognates: Gothic bandi "that which binds; Sanskrit bandhah "a tying, bandage," source of bandana; Middle Irish bainna "bracelet;" see bend (v.), bind (v.)). Most of the figurative senses of this word have passed into bond (n.), which originally was a phonetic variant of this band.

The meaning "a flat strip" (late 14c.) is from Old French bande "strip, edge, side," via Old North French bende, from Old High German binda, from Proto-Germanic *bindan (see above). In Middle English, this was distinguished by the spelling bande, but since the loss of the final -e the words have fully merged. Meaning "broad stripe of color" is from late 15c.; the electronics sense of "range of frequencies or wavelengths" is from 1922. The Old North French form was retained in heraldic bend. Band saw is recorded from 1864.
bound (adj.1): "fastened," mid-14c., in figurative sense of "compelled," from bounden, past participle of bind (v.). Meaning "under obligation" is from late 15c.; the literal sense "made fast by tying" is the latest recorded (1550s).
clean (v.): mid-15c., "make clean," from clean (adj.). Related: Cleaned; cleaning. From clean out "clean by emptying" comes sense of "to leave bare" (1844); cleaned-out "left penniless by losses" is from 1812.
commiseration (n.): 1580s, from Middle French commisération, from Latin commiserationem (nominative commiseratio) "act or fact of pitying," noun of action from past participle stem of commiserari "to pity," from com- intensive prefix (see com-) + miserari "bewail, lament," from miser "wretched" (see miser).
denouement (n.): 1752, from French dénouement "an untying" (of plot), from dénouer "untie" (Old French desnouer) from des- "un-, out" (see dis-) + nouer "to tie, knot," from Latin nodus "a knot," from PIE *ned- "to bind, tie" (see net (n.)).
dirty (v.): 1590s, from dirty (adj.). Related: Dirtied; dirtying.
dysphemism (n.): 1884, "substitution of a vulgar or derogatory word or expression for a dignified or normal one," from Greek dys- "bad, abnormal, difficult" (see dys-) + pheme "speech, voice, utterance, a speaking," from phanai "speak" (see fame (n.); Greek dysphemia meant "ill language, words of ill omen"). The opposite of euphemism. Rediscovered 1933 from French formation dysphémisme (1927, Carnoy).
The French psychologist Albert J. Carnoy gave an extensive definition in his study Le Science du Mot, which in translation runs: "Dysphemism is unpitying, brutal, mocking. It is also a reaction against pedantry, rigidity and pretentiousness, but also against nobility and dignity in language" (1927, xxii, 351). [Geoffrey L. Hughes, "An Encyclopedia of Swearing," 2006]
empty (v.): 1520s, from empty (adj.); replacing Middle English empten, from Old English geæmtigian. Related: Emptied; emptying.
kenosis (n.): from Greek kenosis "an emptying," from kenoein "to empty," from PIE *ken- (3) "empty." From Phil. ii:7. Related: Kenotic.
ligature (n.): c. 1400, "something used in tying or binding," from Middle French ligature (14c.), from Late Latin ligatura "a band," from Latin ligatus, past participle of ligare "to bind" (see ligament). In musical notation from 1590s; of letters joined in printing or writing from 1690s.
party (v.): "have a good time," 1922, from party (n.). Earlier as "to take the side of" (1630s). Related: Partied; partying.
pity (v.): "to feel pity for," late 15c., from Old French pitier and from pity (n.). Related: Pitied; pitying.
pretty (v.): 1916, usually with up, from pretty (adj.). Related: Prettied; prettying. Compare prettify.
putty (v.): 1734, from putty (n.). Related: Puttied; puttying.
self-pity (n.): 1620s, from self- + pity (n.). Related: Self-pitying.
tape (n.): Old English tæppe "narrow strip of cloth used for tying, measuring, etc.," of uncertain origin; perhaps [Klein] a back-formation from Latin tapete "cloth, carpet," compare also Old Frisian tapia, Middle Low German tapen "to pull, pluck, tear." The original short vowel became long in Middle English.

Adhesive tape is from 1885; also in early use sometimes friction tape. Tape recorder "device for recording sound on magnetic tape" first attested 1932; from earlier meaning "device for recording data on ticker tape" (1892), from tape in the sense of "paper strip of a printer" (1884). Tape-record (v.) is from 1950. Tape-measure is attested from 1873; tape-delay is from 1968.
thing (n.): Old English þing "meeting, assembly, council, discussion," later "entity, being, matter" (subject of deliberation in an assembly), also "act, deed, event, material object, body, being, creature," from Proto-Germanic *thingam "assembly" (cognates: Old Frisian thing "assembly, council, suit, matter, thing," Middle Dutch dinc "court-day, suit, plea, concern, affair, thing," Dutch ding "thing," Old High German ding "public assembly for judgment and business, lawsuit," German Ding "affair, matter, thing," Old Norse þing "public assembly"). The Germanic word is perhaps literally "appointed time," from a PIE *tenk- (1), from root *ten- "stretch," perhaps on notion of "stretch of time for a meeting or assembly."

The sense "meeting, assembly" did not survive Old English. For sense evolution, compare French chose, Spanish cosa "thing," from Latin causa "judicial process, lawsuit, case;" Latin res "affair, thing," also "case at law, cause." Old sense is preserved in second element of hustings and in Icelandic Althing, the nation's general assembly.

Of persons, often pityingly, from late 13c. Used colloquially since c. 1600 to indicate things the speaker can't name at the moment, often with various meaningless suffixes (see thingamajig). Things "personal possessions" is from c. 1300. The thing "what's stylish or fashionable" is recorded from 1762. Phrase do your thing "follow your particular predilection," though associated with hippie-speak of 1960s is attested from 1841.
tie (v.): Old English tigan, tiegan "to tie, bind, join, connect," from the source of tie (n.). Meaning "to finish equal to a competitor" is from 1888. Related: Tied; tying. To tie the knot in the figurative sense "form a union" is from 1707. Tie one on "get drunk" is recorded from 1944.
untie (v.): Old English untigan "loosen, unchain," from un- (2) "opposite of" + tie (v.). Related: Untied; untying.
bundobust: "Arrangements or organization", Urdu, from Persian band-o-bast 'tying and binding'.
evacuant: "(Of a medicine or treatment) acting to induce some kind of bodily discharge", Mid 18th century: from Latin evacuant- 'emptying (the bowels'), from the verb evacuare, later in the more general sense 'remove (contents)'.
bulbospongiosus: "(More fully bulbospongiosus muscle) a muscle of the perineum which acts to aid the emptying of the urethra in males, and as a weak vaginal sphincter in females", 1930s.
alligation: "The action of attaching, joining, binding, or linking; the state or fact of being attached, joined, or bound; union, conjunction; combination. Now rare", Mid 16th cent.; earliest use found in Richard Taverner (?1505–1575), translator and evangelical reformer. From classical Latin alligātiōn-, alligātiō action of tying or binding, bond from alligāt-, past participial stem of alligāre + -iō.