umbrella

For today’s trick, I will attempt to connect umbrella with the term throwing shade.

The etymology for umbrella itself is fairly straightforward. It entered English around 1600, meaning what it means today, from Italian and going back to a Latin word meaning what it means today. That word is just a diminutive of umbra, “shade, shadow,” and that is essentially what an umbrella is: a little portable shade. 

It is maybe surprising that the etymology links this item with protection from the sun and not protection from the rain. I feel like most Americans associate umbrellas with rain, and if we’re trying to describe the thing we use to protect ourselves from the sun, we call it a parasol. That word, by the way, means exactly that: coming into English around the same time as umbrella did, from Italian via French, with para- meaning “protection against” (as in parachute and parapet) and sol meaning “sun.”

What is very interesting about the Latin word umbra is that it also gives English the word umbrage, “suspicion that one has been slighted.” This sense goes back to the 1610s, and while Etymonline can’t explain exactly how this sense developed, it does note that whatever did happen shares a lot in common with the term throwing shade, which is sort of the obverse of taking umbrage. When you throw shade, at least in the strict sense of the term, you insult someone without them realizing. When you take umbrage, you are the receiving party, and you infer that you may have been insulted. Both have to do with a situation where someone is not fully clearly whether they have been dunked upon. 

The word shade lends itself to all kinds of metaphorical extensions. It can mean “ghost,” “lamp cover,” “window blind,” “variation of color,” “degree of darkness in a color,” “a small degree” and as verb “to protect the eyes.” As far as the pejorative sense of shady, however, all Etymonline offers is that the “of questionable merit” sense goes back to 1848.

In case you have ever wondered where the hell bumbershoot came from, you may be surprised to learn that it’s predominantly an American term. I know British people use brolly, but for whatever reason I kind of assumed bumbershoot came from there as well. It didn’t. Etymonline does not have an entry for bumbershoot, but Merriam-Webster does, and it explains that the. bumber- part is just a “whimsical, slightly irreverent” alteration of the first two syllables of umbrella. The -shoot part comes from parachute, on account of the one looking like the other.