15 words you never knew were first used in books (infographic)

15 words you never knew came from literature - intro

Did you know that words “robot,” “nerd,” “cyberspace,” or “freelance” were invented by authors?

Take a look at the infographic released by Love Reading, a UK-based book discovery site. It will let you learn the literary origins of popular English words.

See also:
[ef-archive number=2 tag=”lists” ]

Some words are known to come from literature, naming only “catch-22”. Some others are quite a discovery.

The word “debunk,” describing false claims, was used by William E. Woodward in 1923.

There were freelancers at the beginning of 19th century – thanks to Sir Walter Scott and his historical novel Ivanhoe.

I’m sure majority of Yahoo users don’t know the origin of the site’s name. A Yahoo was a legendary being in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, published in 1726.

The most interesting, however, is the word that is a sign of our times. Robot. The word was originally used to describe a humanoid character in a 1921 science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by a Czech writer Karel Čapek.

The visual was designed by Data Dial digital agency. Click or tap the image to see it in full glory.

15 words you never knew came from literature - infographic

Via Mother Nature Network.

Here are more infographics to explore:

[ef-archive number=5 tag=”infographics”]

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