The noun HOME means what you think it does, while the term homing originated around 1765 from pigeon used as carriers.
Darjleeling - Tibetan for “diamond island”
Insurance - 1550’s word meaning “engagement to marry”
Happy - "favoured by chance"
Pariah - a "drummer" (at festivals in India, the hereditary duty of members of the largest of the lower castes was to play the drum. . . unlike in America where to be a drummer means great rewards of pussy and free coke).
Avid - "greedy"
Placid - "to please"
Diamond - the hardest metal, in Latin: “adiamantem,” which i find to be a familiar term used to define the ficticious metal which fused into Wolverine to make his bones unbreakable. X-Men and Latin connections, who would have thought!)
Astrolabe - "star taken"
Numinous - "divine approval expressed by nodding the head"
Dork - "penis" (slang for dumb)
This next one is great because a) its a slight segue from dork, to a word reminiscent of a certain Steve Martin film and b) we may be able to see its first incarnation (or invention) in a song popularized in O, Brother Where Art Thou?
. . . Jerk - American carnival slang of uncertain origin, maybe meaning “tedious and ineffectual person," as in the 1935 song "Big Rock Candy Mountain". The lyrics go: "where they hung the jerk that invented work”. . . hmmm, sounds right to me.
Heretic - comes from Greek, meaning “able to choose.”
Educate - "bring out (of ignorance) and lead forth."
Plane - possibly from Greek “pelanos,” meaning the sacrificial cake offered to the gods. Commonly spread out on an altar perhaps.
The best comes in last - here ya' are
Chow - California slang for food, stemming from chow-chow; from Chinese pidgin English for cha (tsa) meaning “mixed." Just like a Chinese dog breed called “cha,” which may be called as-such because mixed breeds of dogs were mutts, right, and mutts were easily identified as food for consumption. Right?
