Online Etymology Dictionary

accolade (n.): 1620s, from French accolade (16c.), from Provençal acolada or Italian accollata, ultimately from noun use of a fem. past participle from Vulgar Latin *accollare "to embrace around the neck," from Latin ad- "to" (see ad-) + collum "neck" (see collar (n.)).

The original sense is of an embrace about the neck or the tapping of a sword on the shoulders to confer knighthood. Extended meaning "praise, award" is from 1852. Also see -ade. Earlier was accoll (mid-14c.), from Old French acolee "an embrace, kiss, especially that given to a new-made knight," from verb acoler. The French noun in the 16c. was transformed to accolade, with the foreign suffix.
kismet (n.): "fate, destiny," 1834, from Turkish qismet, from Arabic qismah, qismat "portion, lot, fate," from root of qasama "he divided."
From a nation of enthusiasts and conquerors, the Osmanlis became a nation of sleepers and smokers. They came into Europe with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: were they driven out of their encampment, it would be with the Koran in one hand and the pipe in the other, crying: 'Kismet! Kismet! Allah kehrim!' (God hath willed it! God is great!) [Dr. James O. Noyes, "The Ottoman Empire," "The Knickerbocker," October 1858]
Popularized as the title of a novel in 1877.
belt (n.): Old English belt "belt, girdle," from Proto-Germanic *baltjaz (source also of Old High German balz, Old Norse balti, Swedish bälte), an early Germanic borrowing from Latin balteus "girdle, sword belt," said by Varro to be an Etruscan word.

As a mark of rank or distinction, mid-14c.; references to boxing championship belts date from 1812. Mechanical sense is from 1795. Transferred sense of "broad stripe encircling something" is from 1660s. Below the belt "unfair" (1889) is from pugilism. To get something under (one's) belt is to get it into one's stomach. To tighten (one's) belt "endure privation" is from 1887.
omelet (n.): 1610s, from French omelette (16c.), metathesis of alemette (14c.), from alemele "omelet," literally "blade (of a knife or sword)," probably a misdivision of la lemelle (mistaken as l'alemelle), from Latin lamella "thin, small plate," diminutive of lamina "plate, layer" (see laminate). The food so called from its flat shape. The proverb "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" (1859) translates French On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs. Middle English had hanonei "fried onions mixed with scrambled eggs" (mid-15c.).
foil (n.): "very thin sheet of metal," early 14c., foile, from Old French foil, fueill, fueille "leaf; foliage; sheet of paper; sheet of metal" (12c., Modern French fueille), from Latin folia, plural (mistaken for fem. singular) of folium "leaf" (see folio).

The sense of "one who enhances another by contrast" (1580s) is from the practice of backing a gem with metal foil to make it shine more brilliantly. The meaning "light sword used in fencing" (1590s) could be from this sense, or from foil (v.). The sense of "metallic food wrap" is from 1897.
spade (n.2): black figure on playing cards," 1590s, probably from Italian spade, plural of spada "the ace of spades," literally "sword, spade," from Latin spatha "broad, flat weapon or tool," from Greek spathe "broad blade" (see spade (n.1)). Phrase in spades "in abundance" first recorded 1929 (Damon Runyon), probably from bridge, where spades are the highest-ranking suit.
The invitations to the musicale came sliding in by pairs and threes and spade flushes. [O.Henry, "Cabbages & Kings," 1904]
Derogatory meaning "black person" is 1928, from the color of the playing card symbol.
acrid (adj.): 1712, formed irregularly from Latin acer (fem. acris) "sharp, pungent, bitter, eager, fierce," from PIE *akri- "sharp," from root *ak- "be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce" (source also of Oscan akrid (ablative singular) "sharply;" Greek akis "sharp point," akros "at the farthest point, highest, outermost," akantha "thorn," akme "summit, edge;" also oxys "sharp, bitter;" Sanskrit acri- "corner, edge," acani- "point of an arrow," asrih "edge;" Lithuanian ašmuo "sharpness," akstis "sharp stick;" Old Lithuanian aštras, Lithuanian aštrus "sharp;" Old Church Slavonic ostru, Russian óstryj "sharp;" Old Irish er "high;" Welsh ochr "edge, corner, border;" Old Norse eggja "goad;" Old English ecg "sword"). The -id suffix probably is in imitation of acid. Acrious (1670s) is a correct formation, but seldom seen.
temple (n.2): "flattened area on either side of the forehead," mid-14c., from Old French temple "side of the forehead" (11c.), from Vulgar Latin *tempula (plural taken as fem. singular), from Latin tempora, plural of tempus (genitive temporis) "side of the forehead," generally accepted as having originally meant "the thin stretch of skin at the side of the forehead" and being from PIE *temp- "to stretch," an extension of the root *ten- "to stretch" (see tenet). The sense development would be from "stretchings" to "stretched skin."

A similar notion seems to be at work in Old English ðunwange, Old Norse þunn-vangi, Old High German dunwangi "temple," literally "thin cheek." The less-likely guess is that it is associated with tempus span "timely space" (for a mortal blow with a sword).
fop (n.): mid-15c., "foolish person," of unknown origin, perhaps related to obsolete verb fop "make a fool of," from a continental source akin to German foppen "jeer at, make a fool of." Sense of "dandy, coxcomb, man ostentatiously nice in manner and appearance" is from 1670s, perhaps given in derision by those who thought such things foolish. The 18c. was their period of greatest florescense. The junior variety was a fopling (1680s).
His was the sumptuous age of powder and patches. He was especially dainty in the matters of sword-knots, shoe-buckles, and lace ruffles. He was ablaze with jewelry, took snuff with an incomparable air out of a box studded with diamonds, and excelled in the "nice conduct of a clouded cane." [Charles J. Dunphie, "Fops and Foppery," New York, 1876]
guard (n.): early 15c., "one who keeps watch, a body of soldiers," also "care, custody, guardianship," and the name of a part of a piece of armor, from Middle French garde "guardian, warden, keeper; watching, keeping, custody," from Old French garder "to keep, maintain, preserve, protect" (see guard (v.)). Abstract or collective sense of "a keeping, a custody" (as in bodyguard) also is from early 15c. Sword-play and fisticuffs sense is from 1590s; hence to be on guard (1640s) or off (one's) guard (1680s). As a football position, from 1889. Guard-rail attested from 1860, originally on railroad tracks and running beside the rail on the outside; the guide-rail running between the rails.
braid (v.): "to plait, knit, weave, twist together," c. 1200, breidan, from Old English bregdan "to move quickly, pull, shake, swing, throw (in wrestling), draw (a sword); bend, weave, knit, join together; change color, vary; scheme, feign, pretend" (class III strong verb, past tense brægd, past participle brogden), from Proto-Germanic *bregthan "make sudden jerky movements from side to side" (compare Old Norse bregða "to brandish, turn about, braid;" Old Saxon bregdan "to weave;" Dutch breien "to knit;" Old High German brettan "to draw, weave, braid"), from PIE root *bherek- "to gleam, flash" (compare Sanskrit bhrasate "flames, blazes, shines"). In English the verb survives only in the narrow definition of "plait hair." Related: Braided; braiding.
spade (n.1): "tool for digging," Old English spadu "spade," from Proto-Germanic *spadan (source also of Old Frisian spada "a spade," Middle Dutch spade "a sword," Old Saxon spado, Middle Low German spade, German Spaten), from PIE *spe-dh-, from root *spe- (2) "long, flat piece of wood" (source also of Greek spathe "wooden blade, paddle," Old English spon "chip of wood, splinter," Old Norse spann "shingle, chip;" see spoon (n.)).

"A spade differs from a two-handed shovel chiefly in the form and thickness of the blade" [Century Dictionary]. To call a spade a spade "use blunt language, call things by right names" (1540s) translates a Greek proverb (known to Lucian), ten skaphen skaphen legein "to call a bowl a bowl," but Erasmus mistook Greek skaphe "trough, bowl" for a derivative of the stem of skaptein "to dig," and the mistake has stuck [see OED].
slay (v.): Old English slean "to smite, strike, beat," also "to kill with a weapon, slaughter" (class VI strong verb; past tense sloh, slog, past participle slagen), from Proto-Germanic *slahan, from root *slog- "to hit" (source also of Old Norse and Old Frisian sla, Danish slaa, Middle Dutch slaen, Dutch slaan, Old High German slahan, German schlagen, Gothic slahan "to strike"). The Germanic words are from PIE root *slak- "to strike" (source also of Middle Irish past participle slactha "struck," slacc "sword").

Modern German cognate schlagen maintains the original sense of "to strike." Meaning "overwhelm with delight" (mid-14c.) preserves one of the wide range of meanings the word once had, including, in Old English, "stamp (coins); forge (weapons); throw, cast; pitch (a tent), to sting (of a snake); to dash, rush, come quickly; play (the harp); gain by conquest."
fencing (n.): mid-15c., "defending, act of protecting or keeping (something) in proper condition" (short for defencing); 1580s in the sense "art of using a sword or foil in attack and defense" (also fence-play); verbal noun from fence (v.). Meaning "putting up of fences" is from 1620s; that of "an enclosure" is from 1580s; meaning "receiving stolen goods" is from 1851 (see fence (n.)); meaning "materials for an enclosure" is from 1856.

Despite the re-enactment in 1285 of the Assize of Arms of 1181, fencing was regarded as unlawful in England. The keeping of fencing schools was forbidden in the City of London, "as fools who delight in mischief do learn to fence with buckler, and thereby are encouraged in their follies."
bachelor (n.): c. 1300, "young man;" also "youthful knight, novice in arms," from Old French bacheler, bachelor, bachelier (11c.) "knight bachelor," a young squire in training for knighthood, also "young man; unmarried man," and as a university title, of uncertain origin, perhaps from Medieval Latin baccalarius "vassal farmer, adult serf without a landholding," one who helps or tends a baccalaria "field or land in the lord's demesne" (according to old French sources, perhaps from an alteration of vacca "a cow" and originally "grazing land" [Kitchin]). Or from Latin baculum "a stick," because the squire would practice with a staff, not a sword. "Perhaps several independent words have become confused in form" [Century Dictionary]. Meaning in English expanded early 14c. to "young unmarried man," late 14c. to "one who has taken the lowest degree in a university." Bachelor party as a pre-wedding ritual is from 1882.
edge (n.): Old English ecg "corner, edge, point," also "sword" (also found in ecgplega, literally "edge play," ecghete, literally "edge hate," both used poetically for "battle"), from Proto-Germanic *agjo (source also of Old Frisian egg "edge;" Old Saxon eggia "point, edge;" Middle Dutch egghe, Dutch eg; Old Norse egg, see egg (v.); Old High German ecka, German Eck "corner"), from PIE root *ak- "sharp, pointed" (source also of Sanskrit asrih "edge," Latin acies, Greek akis "point;" see acrid).

Spelling development of Old English -cg to Middle English -gg to Modern English -dge represents a widespread shift in pronunciation. To get the edge on (someone) is U.S. colloquial, first recorded 1911. Edge city is from Joel Garreau's 1992 book of that name. Razor's edge as a perilous narrow path translates Greek epi xyrou akmes. To be on edge "excited or irritable" is from 1872; to have (one's) teeth on edge is from late 14c., though "It is not quite clear what is the precise notion originally expressed in this phrase" [OED].
harvest (n.): Old English hærfest "autumn," as one of the four seasons, "period between August and November," from Proto-Germanic *harbitas (source also of Old Saxon hervist, Old Frisian and Dutch herfst, German Herbst "autumn," Old Norse haust "harvest"), from PIE *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest" (source also of Sanskrit krpana- "sword," krpani "shears;" Greek karpos "fruit," karpizomai "make harvest of;" Latin carpere "to cut, divide, pluck;" Lithuanian kerpu "cut;" Middle Irish cerbaim "cut").

In Old English with only implied reference to the gathering of crops. The borrowing of autumn and the use of fall (n.) in a seasonal sense gradually focused the meaning of harvest to "the time of gathering crops" (mid-13c.), also to the action itself and the product of the action (after c. 1300), which became its main senses from 14c. Figurative use by 1530s. As an adjective from late 14c. Harvest home (1570s) was a festive celebration of the bringing home the last of the harvest; harvest moon (1704) is that which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox.
fur (n.): late 14c. "trimming or lining of a garment" (implied c. 1300 in surname Furhode "fur hood"), probably from Old French forrer, fourrer "cover with fur, line (clothing)," in general "to cover, fill with," from fuerre "sheath, scabbard" (via notion of "covering"), from Frankish *fodr or another Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *fodram "sheath" (source also of Old Frisian foder "coat lining," Old High German fotar "a lining," German Futter, Gothic fodr "sword sheath"), from PIE root *pa- "to protect, feed" (see food (n.)).

First applied c. 1400 to the hairy pelt of an animal, whether still on the animal or not. The Old French noun might have had the sense "hide, fur, pelt" (and thus might serve as the immediate source of the English noun), but this is not attested. Absent this, the sense transfer from the lining to the material that goes to make it probably happened in English. As an adjective from 1590s.
I'le make the fur Flie 'bout the eares of the old Cur. [Butler, "Hudibras," 1663]
moment (n.): mid-14c., "very brief portion of time, instant," in moment of time, from Old French moment (12c.) "moment, minute; importance, weight, value" or directly from Latin momentum "movement, motion; moving power; alteration, change;" also "short time, instant" (also source of Spanish, Italian momento), contraction of *movimentum, from movere "to move" (see move (v.)). Some (but not OED) explain the sense evolution of the Latin word by notion of a particle so small it would just "move" the pointer of a scale, which led to the transferred sense of "minute time division." Sense of "importance, 'weight' " is attested in English from 1520s.

Phrase never a dull moment first recorded 1889 in Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat." Phrase moment of truth first recorded 1932 in Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon," from Spanish el momento de la verdad, the final sword-thrust in a bull-fight.
gauntlet (n.1): "glove," early 15c., gantelet, from Old French gantelet (13c.) "gauntlet worn by a knight in armor," also a token of one's personality or person, and in medieval custom symbolizing a challenge, as in tendre son gantelet "throw down the gauntlet" (a sense found in English by 1540s). The Old French word is a semi-diminutive or double-diminutive of gant "glove" (12c.), earlier wantos (7c.), from Frankish *wanth-, from Proto-Germanic *wantuz "glove" (source also of Middle Dutch want "mitten," East Frisian want, wante, Old Norse vöttr "glove," Danish vante "mitten"), which apparently is related to Old High German wintan, Old English windan "turn around, wind" (see wind (v.1)).
The name must orig. have applied to a strip of cloth wrapped about the hand to protect it from sword-blows, a frequent practice in the Icelandic sagas. [Buck]
Italian guanto, Spanish guante likewise are ultimately from Germanic. The spelling with -u- was established from 1500s.
chestnut (n.): 1560s, from chesten nut (1510s), with superfluous nut (n.) + Middle English chasteine, from Old French chastain (12c., Modern French châtaigne), from Latin castanea "chestnut, chestnut tree," from Greek kastaneia, which the Greeks thought meant either "nut from Castanea" in Pontus, or "nut from Castana" in Thessaly, but probably both places are named for the trees, not the other way around, and the word is borrowed from a language of Asia Minor (compare Armenian kask "chestnut," kaskeni "chestnut tree"). In reference to the dark reddish-brown color, 1650s. Applied to the horse-chestnut by 1832.

Slang sense of "venerable joke or story" is from 1885, explained 1888 by Joseph Jefferson (see "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine," January 1888) as probably abstracted from the 1816 melodrama "The Broken Sword" by William Dimond where an oft-repeated story involving a chestnut tree figures in an exchange between the characters "Captain Zavior" and "Pablo":
Zav. Let me see--ay! it is exactly six years since that peace being restored to Spain, and my ship paid off, my kind brother offered me a snug hammock in the dwelling of my forefathers. I mounted a mule at Barcelona and trotted away for my native mountains. At the dawn of the fourth day's journey, I entered the wood of Collares, when, suddenly, from the thick boughs of a cork-tree--
Pab. [Jumping up.] A chesnut, Captain, a chesnut!
Zav. Bah, you booby! I say, a cork!
Pab. And I swear, a chesnut. Captain, this is the twenty-seventh time I have heard you relate this story, and you invariably said, a chesnut, till now.
Jefferson traced the connection through William Warren, "the veteran comedian of Boston" who often played Pablo in the melodrama.
point (n.): c. 1200, "minute amount, single item in a whole; sharp end of a sword, etc.," a merger of two words, both ultimately from Latin pungere "to prick, pierce," related to pugnus "a fist" (see pugnacious). The Latin neuter past participle punctum was used as a noun, meaning "small hole made by pricking," subsequently extended to anything that looked like one, hence, "dot, particle," etc. This yielded Old French point "dot; smallest amount," which was borrowed in Middle English by c. 1300.

Meanwhile the Latin fem. past participle of pungere was puncta, which was used in Medieval Latin to mean "sharp tip," and became Old French pointe "point of a weapon, vanguard of an army," which also passed into English, early 14c.

The senses have merged in English, but remain distinct in French. Extended senses are from the notion of "minute, single, or separate items in an extended whole." Meaning "small mark, dot" in English is mid-14c. Meaning "distinguishing feature" is recorded from late 15c. Meaning "a unit of score in a game" is first recorded 1746. As a typeface unit (in Britain and U.S., one twelfth of a pica), it went into use in U.S. 1883. As a measure of weight for precious stones (one one-hundredth of a carat) it is recorded from 1931.

The point "the matter being discussed" is attested from late 14c.; meaning "sense, purpose, advantage" (usually in the negative, as in what's the point?) is first recorded 1903. Point of honor (1610s) translates French point d'honneur. Point of no return (1941) is originally aviators' term for the point in a flight "before which any engine failure requires an immediate turn around and return to the point of departure, and beyond which such return is no longer practical."
Saxon (n.): c. 1200, from Late Latin Saxonem (nominative Saxo; also source of French Saxon, Spanish Sajon, Italian Sassone), usually found in plural Saxones, from a Germanic source (Old English Seaxe, Old High German Sahsun, German Sachse "Saxon"), with a possible literal sense of "swordsmen" (compare Old English seax, Old Frisian, Old Norse sax "knife, short sword, dagger," Old High German Saxnot, name of a war-god), from Proto-Germanic *sahsam "knife," from PIE *sek- "to cut" (see section (n.)).

The word figures in the well-known story, related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who got it from Nennius, of the treacherous slaughter by the Anglo-Saxons of their British hosts:
Accordingly they all met at the time and place appointed, and began to treat of peace; and when a fit opportunity offered for executing his villany, Hengist cried out, "Nemet oure Saxas," and the same instant seized Vortigern, and held him by his cloak. The Saxons, upon the signal given, drew their daggers, and falling upon the princes, who little suspected any such design, assassinated them to the number of four hundred and sixty barons and consuls ....
The OED editors helpfully point out that the correct Old English (with an uninflected plural) would be nimað eowre seax. For other Germanic national names that may have derived from characteristic tribal weapons, see Frank, Lombard. As an adjective from 1560s. Still in 20c. used by Celtic speakers to mean "an Englishman" (Welsh Sais, plural Seison "an Englishman;" Seisoneg "English").

In reference to the modern German state of Saxony (German Sachsen, French Saxe) it is attested from 1630s. Saxon is the source of the -sex in Essex, Sussex, etc. (compare Middlesex, from Old English Middel-Seaxe "Middle Saxons"). Bede distinguished the Anglo-Saxons, who conquered much of southern Britain, from the Ealdesaxe "Old Saxons," who stayed in Germany.