If you know a bit about word origins, you might assume that female was formed by adding a prefix to male; or similarly, that belfry — i.e., a church’s bell-tower — is a form of bell with a suffix tacked on.

But neither assumption is true — thanks to something called folk etymology.

To quote Merriam-Webster, this relatively uncommon process involves “the transformation of words so as to give them an apparent relationship to other better-known or better-understood words.” In this way, the resulting term will seem to be derived from something familiar and related — even though there’s no real etymological connection.

Take female, for instance: That actually comes from the Latin femella, a form of femina (from which we get feminine, of course). As one vocabulary textbook puts it, “the English word owes its spelling to the fact that people felt it must somehow be derived from the word male, although there is no linguistic relationship between the two.”

And as for belfry: That’s from the Middle English berfrey, a rolling siege tower that originally held no bell at all. Over time, the first R changed to L, and the word became associated with church-towers containing a bell.

So … that’s a long introduction to our current topic at Webb’s “Weird Words,” which came up last time with whiskey jack — a bird in the jay family. Its name derives likewise from folk etymology, by Anglicizing a Cree word for that creature: wiiskachaan — which became the easier whiskey john, and then eventually jack.

I’ve got nearly two dozen similar folk derivations; let’s see how many we can get through this week.

Let’s start alphabetically with acorn: Though the tree-borne nut might be thought to resemble a certain well-known yellow kernel, acorn does not come from corn; it is rather a folk etymology of the Middle English aecern, which in turn comes from a family of European words designating nuts, fruit or produce.

So by now, with andiron coming next, you just know I’m gonna tell you it’s not related to iron. Yes, andirons — the raised supports for firewood in a hearth — are usually made of iron; but the word itself allegedly goes back to the very old Gaulish term anedros, meaning “animal” — from the long-ago practice of putting decorative animal heads on andirons (dictionary.com).

But perhaps the most intriguing and complex folk etymology is: Amazon.

We might begin by noting that the word now instantly evokes thoughts of online commerce; but of course, this well-known company was named for the South American river — probably because that waterway is the world’s largest and, like its modern namesake, moves an awful lot of stuff.

But the river itself was named for the legendary tribe of women warriors in ancient Greek mythology. This in turn occurred because — as Merriam-Webster points out — “the first Europeans to descend the river were attacked by Indian warriors who, even at close range, they believed to be women.”

In the best tradition of folk etymology, older writers explained that Amazon was a blend of two Greek elements: the prefix a-, meaning “not” or “without” (as in amoral, asexual and atheist); and mast- or maz-, meaning “breast” (as in mastectomy).

In other words, it was supposed that Amazon literally meant “without a breast” — from the misguided theory that these fierce females removed one mammary in order to facilitate archery. That notion is now widely discredited, with Wikipedia pointing out that all the ancient artistic representations of Amazons are twin-breasted.

If this isn’t too complicated, one writer has gone so far as to suggest that the false etymology itself is responsible for this erroneous belief about Amazon anatomy.

All that said, the word Amazon itself has an otherwise unknown etymology. Phew!

So let’s finish with something simpler:

Crayfish, as you may have guessed, is not related to fish — though of course they both live in water (hence the folk etymology); the word actually goes back to the Middle English word crevis, which in turn comes from the High German krebis, meaning “crab.”

We’ve got about 10 more to cover in our next installment — including hangnail, shame-faced and sacrilegious.

See you then!