Ogre - etymology

[Roman]

Well, yes, but that is really just a coincidence and good example of folk etymology. I mentioned that the word obr was used for Avars, but that was just to reinforce my point (and because it is kinda interesting). The word obr doesn't have any negative connotations it simply means giant. There is no obvious explanations how this word would have become French word Ogre.

The similarity in both pronounciation and meaning is interesting, whether it signifies common origins of the words I do not know.

By the way giants are not exactly common in Slavic mythology, and what there are can be attributed to shared European origin, hence similar traits with ogres.

They are not all that common, but they are present and have very much ogre-like traits.

I take it you are a Slovak, which would explain Hungarian roots.

That is indeed correct. I guess that would make me only a quasi-ogre.

Given the location given in your profile, are you Czech?

I am still looking if Hungarians used the word Ugri to describe themselves in their own language or they did this only in Latin documents.

Well, in Slovak, the old kingdom Hungary is called 'Uhorsko' or 'Uhry', but Magyars are termed 'Madari'. I don't speak Hungarian, so I cannot comment on whether they have a word like 'Ugri' or something similar to describe themselves on top of the word "Magyar" that they use normally.

 

[Roman]

So, not only was Ugri, Ungri, and Ongri the root for Ogre, meaning Hungarian or Magyars, but it is supposed as a descendant of the Latin root of Orcus, thusly both answers are right.

This could be a possibility.

 

[painandgreed]

Very interesting - so it appears the origin is uncertain.

Plus, AFAIK the OED only deals with print and you're talking about something that goes back to the 1100's. It could have been in useage in the common argot much earlier, and there's not description of how many occurances they have for such, and how much writing from that time period is there that has even survived? I think it pretty much shows the English word ogre is from the French word ogre and that word is almost a thousand years old, not only before dictionaries and entymology, but probably standardized spelling.

 

[Nyaricus]

What's interesting about the arguement about how Orc and Ogre might be related is that over here in the "How have you made ogres more interestinG" thread, I said the following:

[sblock]When the Giants (whose true name, in their (the Giant's) tongue is Fomorian) invaded Amneron (my worlds rough equivalent of Europe) they were repelled by humans and (eventually, once the humans sent out many scouts into the far territories) their elven allies. Dwarves were deep under the earth and at this point were not a prominant race above ground. The Fomorians had no desire to wage a large-scale campaign at this point - they simply wanted room enough to settle. So, the northern raiding party, which was ruled by the Prince of the Fomorians, sent out scouts who found the Orcs.

Orcs are Tolkienesque in my campaign. They were created by a god in forgotten times of evil, hatred and darkness, and the orcs were spiteful, decrepted (sp?) beings. The Prince traded many of his peoples daughters in return for help from the orcs, who were warmongers of the vilest sort. They had never heard of the elves before, living farther to the north, but swiftly set off war-parties to investigate the elven region of Angfalas further to the south, and east.

While the rest of the details are unimportant here, the orc and giant blood mixed from this trade off, and a new race which was bestial and warmongering like the orcs, but tall and very formidable in combat like Fomors was born. These monsters were called Ogres.

Many of these children were born, and this new races numbers swelled greatly, and the majority of ogres would live alongside orcs. This was, however, about 20,000 years ago; in the past thousand or so years, the ogre population has greatly decresed, so much so that it's blood in thinning with further interbreeding with orcs. This new development is giving rise to another new race, nick-named "Orc-ogres", or "Orogs" by men, and who are smaller than ogres, but larger than orcs. [note: they are medium with Powerful Build, and only the name is really similar to this race from FR et al].

"True" ogres still exist, but they are less and less frequent, with this new race of Orogs on the rise. However, orcs still outnumber both, so it's hardly like either are dominating, and the Fomors have been in decline for millenia (sp?).

And yeah, those are Ogres in my games, and what I've done to "spice em up".[/sblock]
So, IRL, Orcs and Ogres might be relatd by ways of language, while in my CS, they are actually related! Amusing, that

cheers,
--N