early 12c., Nativite, "feast-day celebrating the birth of Christ, Christmas," from Old French nativité "birth, origin, descent; birthday; Christmas" (12c.), from Late Latin nativitatem (nominative nativitas) "birth," from Latin nativus "born, native" (see native (adj.)). Late Old English had nativiteð, from earlier Old French nativited. From late 14c. as "fact of being born; circumstances attending one's birth."
mid-15c., "person born in bondage, one born a serf or villein," a sense now obsolete, from native (adj.), and in some usages from Medieval Latin nativus, noun use of nativus (adj.). Compare Old French naif, which also meant "woman born in slavery." From 1530s as "one born in a certain place or country." Applied from c. 1600 to original inhabitants of non-European nations where Europeans hold political power, for example American Indians (by 1630s); hence, used contemptuously of "the locals" from 1800. Related: Natives.
late 14c., natif, "natural, inborn, hereditary, connected with something in a natural way," from Old French natif "native, born in; raw, unspoiled" (14c.) and directly from Latin nativus "innate, produced by birth," from natus, past participle of nasci (Old Latin gnasci) "be born," related to gignere "beget," from PIE root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.
From early 15c. as "born in a particular place, of indigenous origin or growth, not exotic or foreign," also "of or pertaining to one by birth" (as in native land). Also used from early 15c. in a now-obsolete sense of "bound; born in servitude or serfdom." Of metals, minerals, etc., "occurring in a pure state in nature," 1690s.
Native American in reference to the aboriginal peoples of the Americas is attested by c. 1900 as the name of a journal "devoted to Indian education."
In the early 1970s, ... activist Indians began calling themselves Native Americans (from the peyote-using Native American Church, incorporated in 1918 in Oklahoma and subsequently in other states). The newer term, aside from disassociating its users from the reservation life of the past, was a form of one-upsmanship, since it reminded whites just who was on the premises first. [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words"]
"prejudice in favor of a country's natives, promotion and protection of their interests against those of immigrants," 1845, first in reference to the U.S. anti-immigrant movement that grew into the Native American Party, from native (adj.) + -ism. Later used in other contexts. Related: Nativist; nativistic.
1580s, in astrology, "first entrance of a house in the calculation of a nativity," from Latin cuspis "point, spear, pointed end, head," which is of unknown origin. Astronomical sense is from 1670s, "point or horn of a crescent." Anatomical sense of "a prominence on the crown of a tooth" is from 1839.
"observation or diagram of the heavens, showing the positions of planets, on any given day, used by astrologers," mid-16c., from French horoscope, from Latin horoscopum/horoscopus, from Greek hōroskopos "nativity, horoscope," also "one who casts a horoscope, one who observes the hour of a birth," from hōra "hour; season; period of time" (see hour) + skopos "watcher; what is watched" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe").
The notion is of "observing the hour" (of someone's birth, etc.). The word was in late Old English and Middle English as horoscopum, from Latin, but the modern form is considered to be a reborrowing. Old English glossed Latin horoscopus with tidsceawere ("time-shower"). Related: Horoscopic; horiscopal. Horoscopy "the casting of a nativity" is attested from 1650s, from Latin horoscopium, from Greek hōroskopeion, from hōroskopia.
"obnoxious man, fool," by 1964, from Yiddish, from German putz, literally "finery, adornment," obviously used here in an ironic sense. Attested in writing earlier in slang sense of "penis" (1934, in "Tropic of Cancer"). A non-ironic sense is in putz "Nativity display around a Christmas tree" (1873), from Pennsylvania Dutch (German), which retains the old German sense.
"the middle of summer, the period of the summer solstice," Old English midsumor, from mid (adj.) + sumor "summer" (see summer (n.1)). Midsummer Day, an English quarter-day, was June 24 (Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist). Astronomically, midsummer falls on June 21, but the event traditionally was reckoned in northern Europe on the night of June 23-24 (with summer beginning at the start of May). Midsummer night was an occasion of superstitious practices and wild festivities.
