#gipsen

October 7, 2020 | Definition of gypsy 

Given all the reading I do (and my job), I refer to my (Canadian) English language dictionary A LOT. I know English (it’s my first language), but it is important for me to check the exact meaning of a word (after all, synonyms are synonyms and not the same word for a reason). Plus, there are a bajillion more words I still need to learn, I mean did you know about gypsophila before? Or gypsum board? Or gyratory? Well I didn’t.

Anyways, I was looking up the definition of gypsy, and its etymology, according the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2e, is as follows: “earlier gipcyan, gipsen, from EGYPTIAN, from the supposed origin of gypsies when they appeared in England in the early 16th c.”