Today's podictionary word is stable . A bridge is stable because it is unlikely to fall down.
The word comes to English through Old French from Latin and as I noted in an earlier podictionary episode, the ending, the ble , denotes a likelihood. In this case the sta is also the root of the Latin word stare, “to stand.” But the place where farmers keep their cows and horses is also called a stable. This different word also comes from Latin through Old French but this time it's ancestor words mean not “likely to stand” but “a place to stand” because these animals spend most of their time, awake and asleep, on their feet. Stable the barn appeared in English in 1250 placing it nicely within 100 years after the Normans took over England and started spreading French around and stable not rickety shortly after than in 1275.
The word barn was already part of English before the Norman arrival and was likely pronounced something like “bear-urn” and literally means “barley place.” For most of their co-existence as English words a stable has been for animals and a barn for crops. About 300 years ago the animals got into the barn, but the crops haven't yet made it into the stable.
