Etymology
The Gaelic name Cumaradh means "place of the Cymric people", referring to the Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. The Cumbraes are referred to as the Kumreyiar in the Norse Saga of Haakon Haakonarson. The island was previously known in English as Great or Greater Cumray.
Read more about this topic: Great Cumbrae
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)