One intuits the horse connection, but the word is NOT derived from either equus or esquire. The former is directly from the Latin. The latter comes from Latin by way of scutiger, a shield-bearer. No, those are both tempting, but false, leads.
Rather, OED has "equerry" from O.H.G. scura "barn." (Some sources conflate squire with this.)
This reminds one of the "faux amis" idea across languages, only here it is over time, not space.
Is there some possibility that their is a relationship between scura and scutiger in PIE? Obviously, barn and shield-bearer are quite different, so this seems unlikely, but in historical linguistics all sorts of unlikely things come up.
Robert, I just love it when you stop by and see us! That's a fascinating question, but I think I will have to let those with more linguistic knowledge answer this one.
Genie is from the English Geny, from the French, Genie, from the Latin Genius, meaning spirit, and not from the Arabic jinni or djinni. Of course, the former has come to me the latter, at least roughly, since the concept of a Genie is America is somewhat a cross between Robin William's character in Alladin and I Dream of Jeannie.
The above etymology and more information on rich tradition of djinni in Arabic mythology can be found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie
The concept of 'faux amis' or 'false friends' often comes up in the translation studies classes I teach. In translatology at least, they are words in two different languages that share the same etymological root but have evolved in different ways in the two languages. With false friends in Greek and English, it's usually the case that the English word retains the ancient Greek meaning of the word, while in modern Greek the word has evolved. A classic example is the word 'sympathy' and the modern Greek word 'sympathia'. They both come from the ancient Greek 'syn + pathos' (syn= with, pathos=feeling) i.e. to feel with or for someone. The modern Greek meaning of 'sympathia' is, however, an affinity or a liking for something or someone. Another example would be the different meanings of 'formidable' in English and French.
It seems that Robert's definition of false friends is slightly different from the one I am aware of, his being that they are words in the same language that seem to have the same etymology, but are, in fact, of different origin.
Yes, I'm more familiar with museamuse's type of 'false friend'. They're also known as 'false cognates'. A fairly well known example is that the English word "embarrassed" sounds and looks a lot like the Spanish word embarazada. However, the Spanish word actually means 'pregnant'. You can imagine the confusion if an English-speaking lady were to try to announce that that someone has embarassed her!
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
