You read "iconic" and know it's an adjective based on "icon." "Ironic" is related to "irony." And then there's "sardonic." Is it from "sardony"? No such place. There is a place called Sardinia and that apparently is at the heart of "sardonic."
This etymology makes that root (the plant) even more stinging:
Sardonic comes from Greek sardanios "scornful." from sardane, the name of a Sardinian plant, Ranunculus Sardous, known in English as the Sardinian crowfoot, which is so bitter it makes you grimace when you eat it. Later Greek authors confused this word with sardonios "from Sardo (Sardinia)", which in French became sardonique, a term English could not resist usurping.I could wish that explanation, which I copied in full, was in better English -- as in grammatically correct. Ironique!
This etymology makes that root (the plant) even more stinging:
alluding to a Sardinian plant which when eaten was supposed to produce convulsive laughter ending in death.I could go on. Laconic? Bubonic? Hung up on moronic.