• Question: why are umberellas called umberellas?

    Asked by jamjars to David, James, Mike, Suze, Will on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: William Eborall

      William Eborall answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      The Oxford English Dictionary says that umbrella comes from the Latin word umbra which meant shade.

    • Photo: Suze Kundu

      Suze Kundu answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Aah, all I knew was that it was from Latin! Didn’t know the meaning. That must mean that first umbrellas were made to combat sunny weather, rather than wet, rainy weather!

    • Photo: David Ingram

      David Ingram answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Umbra means shadow – from a science point of view the dark region during a solar eclipse is also called the Umbra

    • Photo: James Marrow

      James Marrow answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Did you know that the Chinese invented the first waterproof umbrella! (I wonder what they called it?)

    • Photo: Mike Dodd

      Mike Dodd answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      How interesting 🙂

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