Below are clues to the names of a number of cities. The name of each city is a homograph of an English word. The clues provided are vaguely etymological, and probably not sufficiently helpful. All your knowledge of geography will probably not be enough to provide any assistance. Alas.
These towns, as with the previous bunches, are all purportedly in the United States, though that may not be true. If true, you still probably haven’t heard of any of them, unless you grew up in one of them, in which case you have our sympathies.
- ???, Montana
- From the first person singular perfect active indicative of Ancient Greek εὑρίσκω
- ???, Nebraska
- Via Anglo-
French, Middle French, and Old French from the Latin meaning “overtake”, related to prehensile - ???, Nevada
- Via American Spanish, Spanish, Vulgar Latin, and a perfect passive participle in Latin, from PIE *peyḱ-, meaning to hew, stitch, or paint
- ???, New Hampshire
- Via Anglo-
French and Old French, from the Latin “to separate”, going back to PIE root *pere, “to produce” - ???, New Jersey
- An eponymous adjective describing P.T. Barnum’s elephant, possibly ultimately African in origin
- ???, New Mexico
- Of obscure origin, originally meaning “to have a ringing sensation when hearing something” and possibly related to a word meaning “to urinate”
- ???, New York
- Via Medieval Latin, from Latin for “to spring forward”, going back to PIE root *sl̥i-, with cognates in Greek ἅλλομαι and possibly Sanskrit असरम्
- ???, North Carolina
- Via Old English, Proto-
Germanic, past participle adjective of PIE root *weid-, “to see” - ???, North Dakota
- Via Anglo-
French and Old French, disputedly from Gallo- Romance cornu *antoculare, “horn before the eyes”; parallel to a German word for “eye sprouts”
There are no prizes this month
However, there are prizes for having solved last month’s puzzle: LingDoku II
Chandru Vittal • Cynthia Eby • Evelyn Browne
James Constable • Lisa Cox • Virginia Bouchard
Honorable mentions (the fame! the glory!) go to these puzzlemeisters: Amos Wilson, Artur Jachacy, David Njenfalgar, Emma Kouhi, Eric Chen, Moritz Rathgeber, Philip Newton, Sara Kessler, Sunny Ananth, Tuuli Mustasydän, and Zack De. For the rest of you, the solution is provided herein.