A comment in another thread reminded me a a calque/borrowing/Anglicising (you will understand my confusion in a moment) that I have often wondered about is shown by these words

French - Dent de Lion (literally, lion's tooth)
English - Dandelion (Anglicised borrowing?)
German - Löwenzahn (literally lion's tooth)
Spanish - diente de leon (literally lion's tooth)


My question has always been about which is the older word and what was the direction of travel. Is the German a calque of the French or vice versa. The English is clearly an Anglicised version of the French.

There is, however, another calque involved as a second French word for the same thing is "pissenlit" - literally "piss the bed" and in some parts of England "piss the bed" is a slang term for dandelion.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I can't think how "pissenlit" is a calqque, but the others are clearly related. Only the mis-hearing of "dent de lion" is not obvious.

Pissenlit literally means piss the bed which is one of the names used for dandelion in England

Dandelion

I think the German, French, and English (as well as Welsh et al) are all calques of the Late Latin term dēns leōnis (lions tooth).

I think that English pissabed is a loan translation of the French.

Apparently "pissabed" refers to the diuretic effect of the flower.