Word origin for "teaspoon" and "tablespoon"?

Question

Anyone know (and/or have a link to a reference describing) the origin of the names of "teaspoon" and "tablespoon"?

Answer 1

They refer to two different pieces of flatware (or silverware). A tablespoon is one that is used for eating stuff - like soups or sauces or puddings. A teaspoon is a smaller utensil that is used for stirring beverages that are served in a teacup. Their becoming units of measurement for recipes came as a result of their simply being used in everyday cooking, quite frankly, as scoops. It was much later, when cookbooks started to be written for the regular folks like us in the late 17th century (there were earlier ones) that the actual volume of these measurements were standardized. Oddly, in many lands, measurements are made in grams and liters. America in one of the few that use Tbl spoons and tsp as units of measure. I think it is a system referred to as "avoir du pois" and was kept in use by apothecaries in the US. This system utilized measurements like inches and feet, quarts and pints while the rest of the world used meters and liters. I think that avoir du pois (oddly) was a British system that was used at a time when the French were measuring in "drams" and "grains."

Answer 2

I'm not British, but I should think it's the context that defines how the word is used. Just as "***" is a specific term for an animal, as well as a rather rude term for the buttocks, "bloody" can mean blood-soaked, or it can be used as an oath. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it has been "a British intens. swear word since at least 1676." That source goes on to report "that it was "respectable" before c.1750, and it was used by Fielding and Swift, but heavily tabooed c.1750-c.1920, perhaps from imagined association with menstruation; Johnson calls it "very vulgar..." Eric Partridge, in Words, Words, Words (Methuen, 1933), suggests six possible origins, prompting the idea that blood is simply vivid or distressing as the most probable. He also downplays the suggestion that it originates from "by our Lady" (an invocation of the Virgin Mary) as being phonetically unlikely (to whit I agree). I've also heard it said that it comes from an old oath, "God's blood," (i.e., the blood that was shed by Jesus when He died upon the cross). The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology says this is "probably" the origin, but the OED says "there is no ground for the notion". In short, we may never know for certain of the origin.

Answer 3

try google: word origins

Answer 4

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaspoon