Surprising Word Origins

What this quiz asks

• The bikini swimsuit, launched in Paris in 1946, was named after what?
• The Japanese word 'tsunami' literally means what?
• The word 'emoji' comes from the English word 'emotion'.
• The Japanese word 'karaoke' literally means what?
• The word 'muscle' comes from a Latin word meaning what?
• The name of this bathroom product comes from a Hindi word meaning what?
• The word 'vaccine' comes from the Latin word for which animal?
• Did Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invent the guillotine that bears his name?
• The word 'boycott' comes from Charles Boycott, who was what?
• Nicotine is named after Jean Nicot, a French ambassador who sent tobacco to France from which country?
• Select ALL of these words that came into European languages from Taíno, once spoken across the Caribbean.
• Silhouettes, cheap black profile portraits, are named after Étienne de Silhouette. What was his job?
• Pyjamas were originally loose trousers, not a sleeping suit.
• The chess term 'checkmate' comes from a Persian phrase about which piece?
• A 'googol', the number whose name inspired Google, is 1 followed by how many zeros?
• Put these people who gave their names to words in order of birth, earliest first.
• The word 'tulip' comes, through Turkish, from a Persian word for what?
• Select ALL of these words that are named after a place.
• The word 'ketchup' comes from a Chinese word for a sauce made from what?
• The word 'candidate' comes from the Latin for 'dressed in white'. Why?