The Moon in art and language

Hidden words

• Lunatic comes from the Latin "lunaticus," literally meaning "moon-affected." Old medicine believed mental health crises were triggered by lunar phases. The word survived. The theory didn't.
• Month and "menstruation" share an Indo-European root with "Moon." The very word "Moon" in nearly all Indo-European languages derives from a root meaning "bright" or "luminous."
• Honeymoon became a metaphor for the early stage of marriage. The origin is much older than it looks and has parallels in several European languages.
• Moonstruck still works in English the way "enluarado" works in Portuguese: poetic shorthand for someone bathed in moonlight or, by extension, dazed and dreamy.
• Once in a blue moon is the standard idiom for "rare event," coming directly from the actual second-full-moon-in-a-month phenomenon.
• Asking for the moon means wanting the impossible.
• Over the moon means delighted, in a way no other planet or star ever managed to phrase.