Name Origin
The city name is the same as a local Ukrainian name for Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort or common wormwood), which is also чорнобиль "chornobyl". An alternative etymology holds that it is a combination of the words chornyi (чорний, black) and byllia (билля, grass blades or stalks), hence it would literally mean black grass or black stalks.
Read more about this topic: Chernobyl (city)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)