It's a word most people recognize and vaguely understand, but I was curious about the etymology.
From French déranger, from Old French desrengier (“throw into disorder”), from des- + rengier (“to put into line”), from reng (“line, row”), from a Germanic source. See rank (noun).
Coming from the French is what left it out of my wheelhouse. But it makes sense - disrupting a rank, creating disorder.
The Google Ngram viewer for usage in books shows several generations of quietude followed by a rise in recent decades. I suspect once the 2025-26 data is entered that there will be an upward spike. If there is an equivalent tool for monitoring usage in blogs and social media, I should think the numbers will have gone parabolic this year.
The synonyms are pretty familiar -
Yep ~ that's the dump!!!
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I was familiar with nearly all of these but one stood out to me that I had not seen.
ReplyDeleteI very much like "his driveway doesn't go all the way to the road"
I quite like that French hotels have "S.V.P. ne pas deranger" cards to hang outside the door. I picture a maid awakening a sleeping guest, who is thereby deranged.
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