"Self," I thinks to myself, "licorice. Now that is a funny word. What does it mean? Where did it come from?" The lightbulb turns on. "Licor sounds like liquor, eh? But if the front of the word is liquor, what is -ice?" Another lightbulb, way over on the other side of the room, turns on. "In German and English and probably a lot of other languages, the -ish / -isch prefix means something like like ! And we pronounce the -ice in licorice as ish. So, that would mean 'licorice' means 'like liquor'? But that doesn't make any..." Another lightbulb pops on, upstairs. "There are dozens of those old-world herbal tonic liquors with strong licorice and anise flavors: ouzo, anisette, akvavit, Jägermeister, etc.. Could licorice be a reference to those? The English word for the flavor is a reference to a prominent use of the flavoring? A way of saying 'this candy tastes like (that funky herbal) liquor'? As if someone invented a whisky-flavored candy and called it 'Whiskyish' ?"
No!
Licorice comes from Old French (licoresse) via Greek (glukurrhiza) and means "sweet root". It's not a Germanic adjective.
Undaunted, I continue.
"Hey self! What about coward? That's a strange one. Cow, is obvs cow. And -ard could certainly be -herd, as in shepherd (which we pronounce shepard). That would mean coward is cow herder ? OK, obviously it does. But how does that related to being afraid and timid?"
It doesn't, that's how!
"Coward" is from Old French coart: coe which means 'tail' and -art is "...an agent noun suffix denoting one that carries on some action or possesses some quality, with derogatory connotation." So, something like "tail between legs" or "shows his tail" or whatever.
Fail!
But, as a surname (ex. Noel Coward), it does indeed mean "cow herd" (via Old English cuhyrde). English and French collided, and in the aftermath, the name for an honorable profession became an insult. I suppose that's why we needed "cowboy" - "cowards and Indians" just wouldn't sell movie tickets.
Glorious partial success!
Here’s one of my favorite weird one. Isle and island? Not related at all:
island (n.)
1590s, earlier yland (c.1300), from Old English igland “island,” from ieg “island” (from Proto-Germanic *aujo “thing on the water,” from PIE *akwa- “water;” see aqua-) + land “land.” Spelling modified 15c. by association with similar but unrelated isle. An Old English cognate was ealand “river-land, watered place, meadow by a river.” In place names, Old English ieg is often used of “slightly raised dry ground offering settlement sites in areas surrounded by marsh or subject to flooding” [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]. Related: Islander.
isle (n.)
late 13c., from Old French ile, earlier isle, from Latin insula “island,” of uncertain origin, perhaps (as the Ancients guessed) from in salo “(that which is) in the sea,” from ablative of salum “the open sea.” The -s- was restored first in French, then in English in the late 1500s.
that’s awesome.
Seems like a slam dunk, isle/island. Crazy.