köken: Phrase consisting of 木偶 (deku, “wooden puppet”) + の (no, possessive particle) + 坊 (bō, term of endearment). The deku portion is of unknown origin and may have arisen as a standalone term later than as a part of a compound. Theories include: * Alteration from 出狂坊／出来坊 (dekurubō), used synonymously, in turn from 出狂坊 (dekuruibō), literally "little one who has gone mad". * From 手 (te, “hand”) + 傀儡…
köken: First attested in James Scarth Gale's Korean-English Dictionary, 1897. The etymology is unclear. The second element is clearly the derogatory agentive suffix -보 (-bo) (cf. 먹— (meok-, “to eat”) > 먹보 (meokbo, “glutton”)), but the first element is uncertain. Two hypotheses have been suggested (Cho Hang-beom 2019, pp. 161—164): * Dropping of the final consonant in 밥 (bap, “rice; food”), with the…
köken: Inherited from Proto-Slavic *bъlbъ, from Proto-Indo-European *stl̥b-, an ablaut variant of *stelb (“post, pole, jamb”) (whence also stilbs, q.v.), from *stel- (“to put in a standing position, to erect; standing, immobile, stiff”) with an extra b. The semantic evolution was probably: “motionless, stiff” > “surprised, stunned” > “stupid”. Cognates include Old Irish borb (“foolish, silly”), Latvian…
köken: A dialectal word, without attestation in Old and Middle Armenian literature. Perhaps of the same origin as Old Armenian դանդաղ (dandał, “slow”) and dialectal Armenian դանդան (dandan, “stupid”).