Jo MacCarthy of Rochestown, Cork, asks about the origin of the often misunderstood word ilk. It is an old word: the 9th century English was ilca, related to like, and it survives now only in the title of Scottish landowners, where they took their surnames from their estates. Guthrie of that ilk, given by Oxford as an example, means "Guthrie of that same" i.e. Guthrie of the place called Guthrie. For somebody to call Jo from Rochestown "MacCarthy of that ilk" would be nonsense. It is even more nonsensical to say, "Daniel O'Connell and people of that ilk", as I heard a respected historian say recently in a moment of weakness.
Ena Murphy's husband, a Ringsend man, worked in New York as a stevedore, she tells me. Stevedore dates from the 17th century. The word is from Spanish but its remote ancestor was the Latin stipare, to pack full, to stow. This gave Spanish estibar, to load a cargo, and estibador, the man who loads it. Funnily enough some 18th century dictionaries, not wanting to credit Spain with the newish borrowing, spelled the word stowadore.
Handkerchief is bothering Aisling Browne of Sutton. Let's take the last element first. Chief is from Latin caput; the Greek is kephale, and way back we find the Sanskrit kapala; it means a head. The ker bit is just a little more complicated. The Latin prefix co- was used to intensify operire, to conceal. This prefix, when it eventually found its way into English, was abbreviated to cur (take curfew, by way of French couvre-feu, "cover fire" as an example). And so it came about that ker (cur) was added to chief to become a medieval woman's head covering. Handkerchief, a piece of linen to hold in the hand, came into being in the 16th century.
Poltroon, a wretched coward, a miserable sleeveen, is the subject of a query from Douglas Craig who writes from the Isle of Man. It comes from Middle French poltron, from the Italian poltrone, a coward, a lie-a-bed, a sluggard from poltro, a bed. Poltrone also means colt, because of a colt's habit of bolting. But the word may have emigrated from the barbarians over the Alps in the Dark Ages to give rise to the Italian words. I suggest you compare the Old High German word for a pillow, bolstar. It, or the Old Norse bolstr, gave English bolster, by the way.