The Greek spinther means a spark. The Latin diminutive scintilla, a little spark, comes from the same root. From scintilla came the verb scintillare, to sparkle. For some reason or other this word became stincillare among the ordinary people, a verb which gave the Old French estincelle, a spark. The French, notorious for not pronouncing s, soon spelled the word etincelle. Silk and satin could be made to glitter by weaving gold or silver thread through it: the cloth became etincele. From this was born the English word tinsel. Helen Grey from Reading, a fashion designer, wrote to ask. Stencil also came in a roundabout way from stincillare; stencilling, after all, was done to make things sparkle with colour.
An old friend from New Ross has broken a silence that has lasted for 46 years by reminding me of a lovely summer's evening when our world was young. A crowd of us were paddling borrowed cots (salmon fishermen's flat-bottomed boats Irish coite) up the Barrow to picnic, and the evening, she says, was for her at least, full of the etincellement of romance until yours truly managed to capsize the cot she and I were in, trying to avoid a log. All is forgiven, it seems, the refreshing swim a fond memory; and what she now wants to know is where the aquatic word regatta comes from.
It comes from the Venetian dialect word regatta. It came into being in a roundabout way. The Latin word caput, a head, slid into Late Latin to mean capital (the financial term); and from it came the verb adcapitare, to add to capital, to buy. The French borrowed the word as achete, the Italians added re and made recatare of it, which meant to buy and resell, and, later, to haggle. This gave the Venetian word regatta, a commercial contention, and this later became an aquatic one. It seems the word came into English in 1768 when the Earl of Lincoln used it in the invitations he sent his friends to race their boats on his waters.
John O'Brien is a student who lives, he tells me, in a kip in Rathmines. He wants to know what the origin of kip is.
It was obsolete by 1880 except in Dublin, according to Partridge. It was a brothel, what they used to call in Wexford town a watlin' shop. Compare Danish kippe, a brothel, a low tavern.