Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
In response to a request for the origin of the word “hiccough”… here’s one thing I found. I found it on the internet, so take it for what it’s worth. Do some more research before you accept it as completely true. 🙂
Take Our Word For It
Page two, Words to the Wise:
“From Lee Daniel Quinn:
I’ve been deprived all my life. When I get hiccups, all I do is ‘hic’! Are there some people who actually ‘hiccup’? Or perhaps, as in the case of ‘throw up’, it means to ‘hic’ up?
That’s a good guess! However, if we take a look at the word’s earlier forms, we find hickock and then hicket. These suggest a derivation from French hoquet, which is a diminutive form of of the sound made when one hiccups. So a hiccup is, etymologically, a ‘little hic’ (the hic being imitative of the sound made when one hiccups)! The earliest English form (1544) evolved into the current English form in this fashion: hicket, hickot, hickock, hickop, hiccup, hiccough.
Note that hiccough is the last in the series. It was invented, erroneously, because someone apparently thought that cough should be part of a hiccup!
The hoquet form survives as the musical term hocket. This is where members of a group of musicians take turns in playing the notes of a melody. Unless this is performed with great skill it sounds like a series of hiccups.”
And one more, from etymonline.com
hiccup
1580, hickop, earlier hicket, hyckock, considered imitative of the sound of hiccupping (cf. Fr. hoquet, Dan. hikke, etc.); modern spelling first recorded 1788; hiccough (1626) is by mistaken association with cough. Replaced O.E. ælfsogoða, so called because hiccups were thought to be caused by elves.
Interesting… 🙂
I haven’t seen it spelled “hiccough” in many years. I always thought it was the proper way to spell it until now. Glad that was cleared up.
Nay, the more proper way is to pronounce it is ‘hicup’, for it reflect the sound ‘hic’as well as the movement one makes while hicup…