Monday "Moon"

WORD HISTORY:
MOON-This word goes back to Indo European "menses/menes," which meant "moon," but also "month;" undoubtedly due to use of the moon by ancient peoples as a means of telling time. Many linguists believe that the "me" part, which noted "measurement" in Indo European, is actually the root word, and this again connects with the sense of "measuring time." Lithuanian, considered by many linguists to be the closest "living" language to Indo European, has "menuo," and indeed, it means both "moon" and "month." The Indo European form gave the Old Germanic offshoot of "maenon." This in turn gave Old English "mona." The possessive form gave Old English "monandaeg," which is literally "moon's day," which has now become "MONDAY." Further, the Old Germanic word had a variant of "maenoth/manoth," which gave Old English "monath," which is now "MONTH," in modern English. These various forms are present throughout the other Germanic languages: (in order by "moon," "month," and "Monday") German has "Mond-Monat-Montag" (all German nouns are capitalized); Dutch has "maan," "maand," "Maandag;" Swedish has "måne," "månad," "måndag;" Danish and Norwegian have "måne," "måned," "mandag." The verb form of "moon" seems to have developed in the 1600s, and it originally meant "to expose to moonlight." In the 1670s came "moonstruck," which had the meaning of "being lost to fantasy land." During the late 1960s came the modern notion of "showing one's behind (like the moon)."