Everyday LifeGreek → English
Purse
/pɜːrs/noun
A small bag for money, or in American use a handbag; also the prize money in a contest.
The Greek roots
βύρσα
býrsa
hide, leather
Literally: “leather bag”
Follow a root:βύρσα1 word
The story of the word
Býrsa was a flayed hide, and the leather bag made from one became Latin bursa. English had purs before the Norman Conquest, and the same Latin word later delivered bursar, reimburse and the Bourse in Paris, so a stock exchange is a leather sack. Byrsa was also the name of the citadel of Carthage, which Greek storytellers explained with a queen who bought as much land as one oxhide would cover and then cut the hide into threads.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old English → English
- First recorded
- before 1100
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
bursarreimbursedisbursebursary
In a sentence
She counted out the coins from a purse worn shiny at the clasp.
The winner's purse was larger than the prize for the tournament itself.