--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bagoven20" <bagoven20@...> wrote:
> I have so many questions mainly on Spanish words. Can anyone give
me
> the story or etymology of the word "tripulante" for ship's crew?
It
> seems to me that it came from Gk. 'tripolis' or 'three cities'.
But
> which 'three cities'?
The base word in Spanish is _tripular_, 'to man (a ship); to drive
(a car)'.
I don't know if there's any folk etymology connecting it with Greek
_tripolis_ (= executive officers + navigation officers + men?), but
when I looked up the word in the Spanish-Spanish section (i.e. the
one simply labelled 'Español') at
http://www.diccionarios.com/ , it
derived the word from Latin _interpola:re_ 'renovate, do up'.
Switching to other resources, I find that the -pol- is the same as
in _poli:re_ 'polish, improve, put in good order'. It's been
suggested that these words are related to one of the PIE *pel roots
(I presume Pokorny #1471 pel, pel&-, ple: - so presumably *pelh1 -
'to cover, wrap; skin, hide; cloth') but Pokorny seems not to list
them under any of the *pel roots.
Richard.