During the course of today's chat, I used (and misspelled) the word pomace. I wondered if it was related to pumice. Pomace is from Medieval pōmācium 'cider' from Vulgar Latin pōma 'apple'. Pumice is from Late Latin pōmex from Latin pūmex, variant of spūma 'foam'. The context was about the Italian beverage grappa 'a kind of brandy' (distilled from the pomace left over from winemaking).

There are a lot of words in English which appear similar, but come from Latin roots. I'm drawing a blank right now, but I'm sure someone will chime in with a couple.

Sean, you really should join us on a chat sometime.

Zmj, I found your etymology for pumice (online AHD). However, I also found this, which seems to me to be different, though I am not always good at understanding some of the abbreviations associated with etymologies:

"Origin: bef. 1000; < L pūmic-, s. of pūmex pumice stone; r. ME pomis(e), pomish(e), pomice < MF pomis < L; cf. OE pumic- (< L), in pumicstān pumice stone; see pounce3"

That would tell me that pumice comes from the Latin word for stone, and in that etymology (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, online) it says nothing of being a variant of spuma 'foam.'

Kalleh,

I'd suggest your etymology doesn't go back far enough. The Romans would of course be familiar with pumice, with Mount Vesuvius and other volcanoes nearby, so they had their own word. Your dictionary doesn't give the etymology of their word, pomex.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says '... from PIE *poimo-, with connotations of "foam, froth." '

One of my Latin etymological dictioanries repeats that pūmex variant of spūma. Pokorny has two entries for the PIE roots *(s)p(h)jēu- (/ (s)pjū-, (s)pīw-) 'to spew, spit' whence Latin spuo 'to spew, spit' (which some connect with spūma) and (s)poimno- 'foam, froth; spray, spume' pūmex and spūma. The only other languages cited for related words in the latter entry are Ossetic (a kind of Persian), English foam, Old Prussian (an extinct Baltic language), and Old Church Slavonic.

Yes, I see you are correct, Arnie.

What is "Old Church Slavonic?"

What is "Old Church Slavonic?"

It's the Slavic language into which the bible was first translated. It is sometimes called Old Bulgarian. As the oldest written Slavic language, it is important for the historical study of Slavic languages.