window

I wish to discuss the word "window" because right now I am sitting in a chair with my feet propped up in the open window in my bedroom, enjoying this lovely weather.

Our AHD defines a window firstly as "an opening constructed in a wall or roof that emits light or air to an enclosure and is often framed and spanned with mounted to permit opening and closing," which is our typical definition, and the definition I am making use of at this moment with my feet, but the AHD also defines window as "an interval of time during which an activity can or must take place," and, perhaps most interestingly and certainly most unknowingly to me, "strips of foil dropped from an aircraft to confuse enemy radar."

According to our AHD, window comes from the Old Norse "vindauga" from 'vindr' which means air, or wind, and passed through Middle English before its arrival in our everyday language. It then directs to the Indo-European root "we" in the appendix plus "auga" the word for "eye." In the appendrix "we" is defined as "to blow." So a window is where things can get blown into your eye, which I am not really experiencing right now because there's thankfully not much a breeze.