Match the Noun With Its Description Quiz

Answer: Zarf

The dates back to 1836, and comes from the Arabic word "zarf", meaning vessel. As coffee spread across the world and arrived in Turkey, the sultans and palace staff were the elite, and the first to partake in it, and because it was brewed at a high temperature, a protective accessory was developed, and they were usually quite ornate. The modern zarf we use today in the form of a cardboard sleeve that a hot coffee cup fits into was invented in 1991 by Jay Sorensen who called it a "java jacket". It is said he was "inspired" to develop something in 1989 when he was pulling his car out of a drive-through coffee shop and spilled the coffee because it was too hot to hold in his bare hand.

The McDonald's corporation learned the lesson the hard way after a 1992 law suit over hot coffee proved to be a danger without something like a zarf to protect consumers.

Answer: Ferrule

We also call the protective point or knob on the end of an umbrella a ferrule. The word is traced back to the early 1600s from the old French "virelle", which in turn came from Latin "viriola", little bracelet. This bracelet concept lends easily to the metal ring, or tube placed over the end of a handle, and in this case a pencil, to help strengthen the attachment of the eraser to the pencil. Ferrule is also the term for the metal band (think ferrous = iron) at the bottoms of table legs, chair legs, or similar object, that strengthens them or prevents them from splitting.

Answer: Tittle

Don't forget to tittle your i's and j's! Tittle comes from the Latin "titulus", which originally meant title. The medieval Latin "titulus" (stroke over an abridged word to indicate missing letters) came to refer to marks such as the tilde, as used for the Spanish letter ñ (pronounced eñe). That mark above the ñ indicates the missing "e" letters on either side of the "n".

Answer: Aglet

The plastic or sometimes metal covering the ends of a lace or point, as in the reinforcement at the end of a shoelace, is an aglet. Interestingly, an aglet has a very similar function to the aforementioned ferrule in its capacity to strengthen the integrity of two things attached. Aglets keep the threading a lace is composed of from unraveling.

But aglets also make it easier to thread the lace through the eyelet of the footwear. Aglet derives from the Latin "acus", needle (as does the word acute), then from Old French "aiguillette", diminutive of "aiguille", again meaning needle.

Its debut in English around the mid-1400s had various spellings, such as aiglet.

Answer: Punt

It's not just a kick that football players do usually on fourth down to give the football over to the other team...a punt is also what we call the indentation at the bottom of a molded glass bottle. Why the bottom of a wine bottle is called a "punt" is not entirely clear to etymologists, but one possibility may be that is comes from the British Midlands dialect "bunt", meaning to push, or butt with the head, and perhaps it's not much of a leap to imagine the bottle bottom being pushed in, or butted in. That dimple is also called a kick-up, which perhaps also supports the notion of an etymology stemming from rugby terminology.

Although it remains a matter of debate, explanations for the function of the punt include strengthening the bottle and also reducing its holding capacity. And also importantly, that indentation helps keep the bottle stable, from tipping over in case the bottle had a bulge at the bottom from the glass-blowing technique.

Answer: Lemniscate

The lemniscate is that sideways figure eight that is the symbol for infinity. Lemniscate comes from a Latin word "lemniscus", describing a pendent ribbon, or something with hanging ribbons, which is reflected in the symbol's graceful shape. There's a possibility it may also have some relation to the Aegean Island, Lemnos.

Answer: Peen

The peen is the part of the hammer at the opposite side of the head from the part that hits the nail. A ball-peen hammer's peen is round shaped. The word's origin might be Scandinavian: the Norwegian dialectal "penn" and Old Swedish "pæna" describe the act of beating iron thin with a hammer.

Answer: Muntin

The strips can be made of wood, metal or even a laminate. They're named for the way each one sticks up from the window. Muntin comes from the French "monter", to rise. The muntin bar is also called a glazing bar or sash bar.

Answer: Grawlix

A grawlix is series of typographical symbols, such as &$#!, used in text as a replacement for profanity. You'd see them often in comic strips for certain temperamental characters like Beetle Bailey's Sarge. It's not a word whose origin is known with certainty, despite the claim that some say it was coined by cartoonist Mort Walker, the very man that created the Beetle Bailey comic strip, who in his 1964 article "Let's Get Down to Grawlixes" popularized the word.

The grawlix itself, however appeared long before Mr. Walker's use of it--in a November 1, 1901 issue of the comic "Lady Bountiful", a grawlix was used to express the title character's shock. It's possible that the word comes from growl, which a person might be accompanying their cussing with.

Answer: Petrichor

Petrichor is that distinct pleasant smell that often we smell in the air after it rains following a long period of warm, dry weather. The word derives from the ancient Greek "petra", meaning stone, and "ichor", the ethereal fluid of the gods and immortals.

The phenomenon of this scent has of course existed since the dawn of time, but the word itself, petrichor, was coined in 1964 by Australian researchers Isabel Bear and Dick Thomas, in an article in the journal "Nature".