That means a lot...

Here are some words so simple, it is possible they will never mean anything else: pain, rain, love.

- Adam Jacot de Boinod

More complex terms can have quite the journey, nodding backwards, eternally, to their complicated and often-distant roots. Let's start with one of my favourites.

The Arabic "al-kuhul" was originally "a powder used to darken the eyelids". This, of course, is where we get the word kohl. But, in laboratories of the time, the term began to be used to refer to any fine powder.