March is Women's History Month, and we're celebrating with a brief look at the linguistic history of women from around the world. But first, a note of warning: most of the terms we discovered are at best neutral, and at worst, negative. Consider harridan. Believed to be a modification of the French term for a worn-out horse or gaunt woman, the English harridan names "an ill-tempered, scolding woman."
A French term which translates literally as "talkative woman" earned a seat in the parlor. The English causeuse names a short piece of furniture, such as a sofa, intended to seat two people facing each other . . . and presumably, talking to each other.

Two women on the causeuse might have cause to talk about the andirons on the hearth. Those metal supports for firewood are believed to have a linguistic ancestor in the Middle Irish word for young woman.

Moving from young women to old, we offer up a slice of baba. That name for a rich, rum-soaked cake entered English via French, but has its origin in a Polish term meaning "old woman."

We can't say exactly why the Polish named their tasty cake for older women, but we do know the story behind the ilama. The Aztecs who first cultivated that fruit gave it the Nahuatl word for old woman because of a fancied resemblance between it and the head of an old woman.

I'm going to go out on a limb about the wonderful little "baba" cakes. They were probably called that because they were baked with loving care by "baba" (grandma), an no one else's were ever so good! My personal favourite is a "rum baba", but I in no way mean to imply that my grandma was a "rum-soaked old woman"!