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End-timey etymological musings

An idle thought entertained during the morning commute to gainful employment:

So what’s up with the words “cataclysm” and “apocalypse,” anyway?

I imagine that similarly random thoughts, provoked by the random firing of synapses, explode into being over your mental horizon on the way to work.

I’m right, aren’t I?

Anyway: What do those words have in common apart from their rather violent, earth-shaking connotations? Well, they seem at first blush to have similar suffixes, kind of, sort of…well, actually, not really. But they do share the letters c, y, l , and s all grouped in proximity. Weak, I know, but perhaps the words share a common etymology.

Or perhaps they flat don’t, as a quick glance at Merriam-Webster Online indicates. Let’s lay out the etymologies of each.

First, cataclysm:

French cataclysme, from Latin cataclysmos, from Greek kataklysmos, from kataklyzein to inundate, from kata- + klyzein to wash

So to innundate and wash away, as by a flood of Biblical proportions.

Now, apocalypse:

Middle English, revelation, Revelation, from Anglo-French apocalipse, from Late Latin apocalypsis, from Greek apokalypsis, from apokalyptein to uncover, from apo- + kalyptein to cover

So to uncover as to reveal, as in Revelations.

No commonalities in their origins, then, though they live on the same street at the end of the world.

Well, there’s your idle end-timey etymological musing for this morning. Happy Friday, all!

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