The
etymology of the word
gypsy is interesting.
Webster 1913
touches upon the fact that it's derived from "Egyptian" but doesn't really
explain further. When the first
Romany peoples crossed the
English channel
and arrived in
England some 500 years ago, they found themselves in a
nation which was just beginning to
flex its
nautical muscles. English
explorers had begun sailing out around the world, and, at a loss to explain
where these dark-skinned
travellers had come from, decided that they
resembled the people of
Egypt.
The word Egyptian gradually became corrupted to Gypsy, and as England moved
further away from a feudal, rural society towards a capitalist,
city-based one, the Romany lifestyle came to be considered a subversive
threat. The status of the Romany dropped from that of travelling folk who
could provide a useful service and they became labelled as beggars and
thieves. For a long time the words gypsy and Egyptian were
interchangeable, and in fact in the 18th Century a law was passed in Britain
making it illegal to "impersonate an Egyptian".