Saturday, February 2, 2013

Word Mix-Up: ANGLE and ANGEL

ANGEL: An "angel" is a heavenly messenger, as found in the Hebrew Bible and also in the New Testament. The English word comes from Latin angelus, which is a borrowing from Greek angelos, meaning "messenger," without any heavenly or religious connotation. The Hebrew word malakh also means "messenger," human or divine.

ANGLE: An "angle" is the space between intersecting lines. It comes the Latin word angulus. You can see the Latin root more clearly in the word "angular." There are several compounds of this word in English: triangle, rectangle, quandrangle, etc.

Although these words are pronounced differently, this is a typographical error that I have seen many times!




(angel image source - angle image source)
(single image)