zonda

The Hebrew word for "feeding tube" (or more technically a nasogastric or orogastric tube) is זוֹנְדָּה zonda. This is clearly not a natively Hebrew word. In fact, the Academy of the Hebrew Language coined machder מַחְדֵּר (from the root חדר - "to penetrate, enter") as a good Hebrew alternative. However, I've never heard it used, whereas zonda is common. So where does zonda come from?

This site suggests it comes from the German Sonde (when pronounced, it sounds very similar to the Hebrew zonda). Sonde in German means "probe" or "tube," and can mean specifically "feeding tube." The German in turn derives from the French sonde, with the same meanings as the German, but also used to describe a tool to determine the depth of water.

English has the cognate word "sound". The most common meanings of "noise" and "in good condition" are not related to sonde. (The latter usage, originally meaning "healthy", finds a related root in the German gesundheit meaning "Health!".) But there are two other uses of sound that are cognate with sonde. The Online Etymology Dictionary first presents a meaning of "sound" as verb that relates to the French noun we saw above:

sound (v.2)

"fathom, probe, measure the depth of water" with or as if with a sounding line and lead, mid-14c. (implied in sounding), from Old French sonder, from sonde "sounding line," perhaps from the same Germanic source that yielded Old English sund "water, sea."

This last suggestion appears in the etymology for another meaning of "sound," this time a noun:

sound (n.2)

"narrow channel of water," c. 1300, sounde, from Old Norse sund "a strait, swimming," or from cognate Old English sund "act of swimming; stretch of water one can swim across, a strait of the sea," both from Proto-Germanic *sundam-, from a suffixed form of Germanic *swem- "to move, stir, swim."

The sound I'm most familiar with is Puget Sound in Washington State. There are many others you might recognize.

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