Words of the Day

Etymology (from etymonline.com):

also tabu, 1777 (in Cook's "A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean"), "consecrated, inviolable, forbidden, unclean or cursed," explained in some English sources as being from Tongan (Polynesian language of the island of Tonga) ta-bu "sacred," from ta "mark" + bu "especially." But this may be folk etymology, as linguists in the Pacific have reconstructed an irreducable Proto-Polynesian *tapu, from Proto-Oceanic *tabu "sacred, forbidden" (compare Hawaiian kapu "taboo, prohibition, sacred, holy, consecrated;" Tahitian tapu "restriction, sacred, devoted; an oath;" Maori tapu "be under ritual restriction, prohibited"). The noun and verb are English innovations first recorded in Cook's book.

Nothing to do with 'tuna'!, a kind of tree. Maybe the English word comes from Chinese?

Also spelled 'toon', 'tun'.

trow‧el /ˈtraʊəl/ noun [countable]  1 a garden tool like a very small spade

from Old French truele "trowel" (13c.), from Late Latin truella "small ladle, dipper" (mid-12c.), diminutive of Latin trua "a stirring spoon, ladle, skimmer."

- Apparently this gave him an idea: he
stuck his trowel into the ground, sat back on his haunches and pulled a
flattened smoke packet out of his jeans. (French - In the woods)

- On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin stretched out
his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his face and he began
to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but presently as
they watched him—Mary with quite breathless interest—he drove the end of
the trowel into the soil and turned some over. (Hodgson - The secret garden)