I was in the church meeting on Sunday and saw this word on the screen as part of a hymn and thought ‘Why does ‘amazing’ mean amazing?’ The answer has more depth than first meets the eye. Wiktionary gives some information.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amaze#English
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English *amasen, *amase (“to bewilder, perplex”) ……, from Old English āmasian (“to confuse, astonish”), from ā- (perfective prefix) + *masian (“to confound, confuse, perplex; to amaze”) …... The English word is analysable as a- (intensifying prefix) + maze (“(archaic) to astonish, amaze, bewilder; to daze, stupefy”).
Of course we have the noun ‘maze’ as in a maze, a labyrinth, an intricate puzzle of a network of paths/passages leading to an objective.
But there is more we can glean from anagrams of the word ‘amazing’. Here are some phrases.
- am Ignaz
Ignaz is short for Ignatius meaning ‘fiery one’ hence we have ignite for example.
https://charlies-names.com/en/ignaz/
- Giza man
The pyramids are at Giza and they are amazing feats of building
- mag Nazi
According to Wikipedia there was a magazine published by the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany from 1940 through 1945 called ‘Signal’. Each issue contained several (mostly eight) colour pages, which was very unusual at the time.
- am a zing
Zing is something with zest (like the oil from citrus fruit skin) or vitality, something exciting
- am AZ gin
There has been a huge increase in specialist gins in recent years
https://www.theginguide.com/gin-reviews.html
All of which I find very interesting. But what struck me on Sunday was this breakdown of the word, just splitting into the syllables.
- am AZ ing
This reminds me of the Alpha and the Omega the ‘A to Z’, the Word, Jesus Christ who is the ‘I am’ of the people which is represented by the ‘ing’. See
Why does ‘-ing’ at the end of a place name refer to ‘people’?
Jesus is the ‘AZ man’, another part anagram, the one we can refer to as the Book of Life, the manual or ‘Emmanuel’, God with us.
Then finally I will just say there is the link to the Middle English word mention in Wiktionary, ‘amasen’.
The first part of this is ‘amas’ which means ‘you love’ in Latin.
And love is amazing of course. Thus it is written
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
So we have the hymn of praise ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ which ends
“Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my Soul, my Life, my All.”
Amen.
Look out for the sign of Baldmichael, he will be back!
P.S. here is the article I referred to again plus a couple of others for any who haven’t seen.
Why does ‘-ing’ at the end of a place name refer to ‘people’?
Immanuel – God with us, an analysis of the word – Matthew 1 v. 23
Love is an egg and ‘un œuf’
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2023/07/21/love-is-an-egg-and-un-oeuf/
Amazing Michael!
"am AZ ing
This reminds me of the Alpha and the Omega the ‘A to Z’, the Word, Jesus Christ who is the ‘I am’ of the people which is represented by the ‘ing’" ✅