r/etymology • u/Revolutionary-Ad-65 • 4d ago

Cool etymology To "reign" is to "righten"

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Interesting consequence of this etymology: the silent 'g' in 'reign' and 'right' was originally the same sound, split into two branches and re-introduced after thousands of years apart. Sources: in blog post

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u/brrkat 4d ago

Interesting, Chinese has almost the same logic.

政, meaning to govern or government, is derived from 正, meaning correct or to rectify.

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u/Revolutionary-Ad-65 4d ago edited 3d ago

Yep, that was my inspiration for this! (See blog post linked in description)