The Wordspotter's Guide: A Jaunt Through Our Etymological Past

by Olivia Swarthout

A rollicking, beautifully illustrated adventure through the history of the English language—from social media star Olivia Swarthout

English is, by many measures, the largest language in the world—and doubtless the unruliest. Over the last millennium, we’ve borrowed, stolen, conquered, and invented our way to a massive lexicon (a million words by some counts), filled with numerous untold stories.

Enter The Wordspotter’s Guide, a delightful tour through our etymological past. Did you know that the term silhouette comes from 18th century French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette, whose austerity measures caused his name to be associated with any low-quality work, such as the black paper cutouts that were a cheaper alternative to traditional portraits? That the word unfriend actually dates to the 17th century? Or that robe and robbed share an etymological root, dating to a time when constructing clothing was so labor-intensive that it was the most valuable thing in most people’s homes and thus likely to be stolen?

Olivia Swarthout tells a deeply-researched, authoritative story about the history of the English language—without losing sight of the fun. If you’ve ever wondered which meaning of cardinal came first (the direction, then the Church figure, then the bird) or lamented that we no longer give people names like John the Wifeless, Ralph the Haunted, and Hugh the Ass (all citizens of 11th century Britain), this is the book for you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, History, Linguistics, Historical

Reviews

[Nancy]

Wordspotting is a hobby for those who love words and want to seek out the stories words can tell us. from The Wordspotter’s Guide by Olivia Swarthout

If you think that the history of words will put you to sleep, you can’t be more wrong. The Wordspotter’s Guide is as entertaining as it is informative.

Oliva Swarthout started by sharing weird Medieval drawings on social media. Her book Weird Medieval Guys came out in 2023. Now, she has ‘invented’ the ‘fake hobby’ of Wordspotting and written a new book filled with entertaining stories and surprising facts.

Charts break down the changing of words from Proto-Indo-European roots to contemporary words, showing how a root word evolved into several words. I found them most fascinating, especially words with Proto-Indo-European roots.

For example, the Proto-Indo-European word mregh-u- meant short. The Proto-German murguz meant brief; the Old English myrge meant pleasant; that became the Middle English mery for merry and today’s merry. BUT, mregh-u- is also the root of the word brief, embrace, and pretzel! You have to see the chart to believe it.

Some things I learned:

The ‘paddy’ in paddy wagon refers to the Irish!
‘Gun’ came from the 14c of calling a giant crossbow ‘Lady Gunilda’, from the Old Norse ‘Gunnhildr’ which mean ‘battle maiden’.
‘Arctic’ came from arktos, which meant bear, because the constellation Ursa Major was in the Northern sky. So, arctic means going toward the bear. Antarctic means going away from the bear.
This book is a great introduction to Etymology. It includes many charts and illustrations and a brief history of the English language.

Thanks to Dutton Books for a free book through NetGalley.

[Lizzie S]

I loved this! The Wordspotter's Guide: A Jaunt Through Our Etymological Past was a fascinating look at the origin of many of the words we use every day!

P.S. - Did you know the (trademarked) word Escalator came before the verb To Escalate??? So cool.

Thanks so much to Olivia Swarthout and Dutton for this ARC through NetGalley. The Wordspotter's Guide will be available November 10th, 2026.

[sascha]

Thoroughly enjoyable and lighthearted. Very informative, however, certainly an introduction book, not for the hardened Etymologist! If you want a witty introduction to etymology I would definitely recommend.

[Maria]

Thank you to Netgalley for this digital ARC!
While I would actually rate my enjoyment level while reading this, as a two…I recognize the intense amount of effort and knowledge that go into writing a book of this nature.
At first I was charmed by the whimsical nature of this writing style. You are a wordspotter on a journey through the etymological past - discovering your surroundings and the words that make them up! Absolutely fun! But as the chapters went by, I was gleaning less and less information and more and more fluff. I do think I could have enjoyed this more if I was listening to the audiobook version. However, this physical book left me wanting more true definitions and word breakdowns - perhaps more like a textbook or glossary (I know. How boring of me!). Due to this desire, the annex and glossary in the book ended up being more enjoyable to me than the aforementioned “wordspotter journey”.

A worthy endeavor and well researched I’m sure, just not the format for me!

[Keely Lavelle]

A fun, creative introduction to the English language, The Wordspotter's Guide is the perfect book for beginner etymologists, language enthusiasts, and folks who just want a unique read.

The format of the novel piqued my interest, flowing from one's self all the way to the cosmos. Readers learn about basic etymology and explore everything from the easy-to-see to the crazy and even humorous semantic changes.

I had a wonderful time following the history, especially relating to animal names. Some of them fell into the "huh?!?!" category!

I highly recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in language. You end this novel with an understanding of etymology and a slew of fun facts for your next get-together. Enjoy!

This is my own opinion. Thank you to Dutton/Plume and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Zoe Lipman]

4.5/5

I absolutely adored this! I learned so much from it!

If you like learning random things, this book is for you!

This non-fiction was written in a way that was easy to comprehend and get into. I didn't feel like I was reading a textbook, I felt like a friend was telling me about their latest hyper-fixation. And that's how I prefer my non-fictions to be.

I also really liked all of the charts that showed how the words changed overtime and their definitions overtime.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

[Bee Ostrowsky]

If you’re going to a cocktail party with a talkative fan of linguistics, you may as well arm yourself with this collection of etymological and historical anecdotes. When asked “did you know...?” you will probably be able to say “I did know that! And did you know [related fact]?” Whether this achieves your conversational aims is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Donna S]

Olivia is an expert guide for those who accompany her on this captivating wordspotting journey. You'll discover enough gems for a lifetime of wordplay enjoyment. Filled with fascinating historical vignettes, the words come to life in this highly intelligent and entertaining read. Using your words will never be the same!

[Tiffany (areyoutellingstories)]

I always find it fascinating to learn the origin of words. It's so interesting to learn what is important to a society reflected in their words and how they evolved over time. I only hope I can retain even a fraction of the interesting information provided in this book so I can spout it out to friends and come off as a smart and interesting person.

[Kimberly Allen]

It's full of the random bits of information that I crave. There's a lot of tongue in cheek humor. It's definitely not a fully serious reference book. It was fun for me.

[ghoulhotline]

Informative and clever, The Wordspotter's Guide is a delightful journey through english etymology.