it's also yummy

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[–] 38 points 2 years ago

According to etymonline,

Lax. Noun. "salmon," from Old English leax (see lox). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, German Lachs, Danish laks, etc.; according to OED the English word was obsolete except in the north and Scotland from 17c., reintroduced in reference to Scottish or Norwegian salmon.

It's weird in that lax died ~400 years ago, then was borrowed back ~100 years ago into American English from Yiddish-speaking immigrants.

It's a weird loanword in that it was a loaned obsolete word that underwent some semantic narrowing in the loan.

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