April 27, 2021 Jetymology

The Liberty Gazette

April 27, 2021

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Want to know where jets come from? Other than the factories. Would it surprise you to know that the word, “jet” seems to have its origins centuries before the jet age? What got me going on this was reading a 200-year-old novel that had nothing to do with airplanes, yet the word “jet” was used a few times, in its verb and adjective forms. So, I had to know. And then, of course, I had to share it with you.

Around the late 15th century, the words “jectere” and “jactare” came into use. These are Late Latin words, meaning “to throw” or “thrust.” In fact, “jectere” was abstracted from “dejectare,” “projectare,” and other similar words. “Jactare,” to toss about, to throw or cast, comes from the root *ye- meaning to throw, impel; to push forth or fling violently. At least, that’s according to Wiktionary and etymonline.com. 

The French must have been jealous, thinking about how they would try so hard to beat future Americans into the air, and so they came up with a word, “jeter,” also meaning “to throw.” About a hundred years later, this evolved into “jet,” meaning to jut out. 

Those were the verb forms, but they also used it as a noun, meaning a spout from which water (or other liquid) comes. This is where we get jet propulsion; jet engines were named as such because they use jet propulsion.

The word can also be used as an adjective. “Jet black” is a deep black and comes from lignite, a mineral used for ornamentation. That was news to me. The Anglo-French adjective was geet, while the Old French version was jaiet. The Latin is gagates, and the Greeks offered gagates lithos, which represented the location of this mineral. Credit for that knowledge goes to wyzant.com. 

And then we have words that grew out of the meanings for “jet” such as jettison (to throw out) and jetlag, a sleeping problem when one’s circadian rhythm is messed up, usually due to long trips across several time zones. The way things are going, jetlag may soon become an antiquated word. With tight controls on international travel, tomorrow’s generation may never know how jetlag feels.

Mike: Cheers to today’s etymology lesson. Basic jet engine operation is simple: it ingests air—pulls it in, squeezes it, and then fuel is mixed into the compressed air. Once the fuel-air mixture is set aflame, it expands rapidly and is pushed through the tail pipe (also known as a jet pipe) with much greater force than when it entered. That force is measured in pounds of thrust. Then, as Newton’s Third Law of Motion says, where there is an action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and away we go. 

There are different types of jet engines, such turbojets, which are often referred to as straight jets, and fan jets, where the jet engine core turns a huge fan like those on most airliners. But they all help you get out of town. 

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