September 06, 2009
- canopic jar (noun)
- \kuh-NOH-pik-JAR\
- What does it mean?
- : a jar in which the ancient Egyptians preserved the internal organs of a deceased person usually for burial with the mummy
- How do you use it?
- Our favorite part of the museum was the ancient Egyptian display of mummies, canopic jars, sarcophaguses, and stone walls covered with hieroglyphics.
- Are you a word wiz?
Canopic jars were named for Canopus, a city of ancient Egypt. Which other word do you think comes from the name of a place?
And the winner is -- answer B! "Tuxedo" comes from Tuxedo Park, New York. Canopic jars acquired their name when archaeologists found jars at Canopus that they thought were used to preserve the internal organs of mummies. They decided to call any jar used that way a "canopic jar" after the name of the city. It turned out that the jars at Canopus had a different use, but the name for such jars remained anyway. Other words come from place names, too. A couple of examples are "rugby" (the name of a game similar to soccer and football), named for the Rugby School in Rugby, England, and "limousine," named for the Limousin region in France where cars are produced.
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