Cornwallis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The 1st Marquess Cornwallis, a British army general who surrendered at Yorktown in 1781 ; a surname or place name associated with several English and Canadian locations
2. A British military commander and governor-general of India, best known for his defeat at Yorktown ; a family name or a locality bearing this name in England and beyond
3. Charles Cornwallis, the British officer who lost the decisive siege of Yorktown during the American Revolution ; a surname shared by notable figures and by various places

Etymology: The "-wallis" ending comes from Old English "wealas," the word Anglo-Saxons used for Celtic-speaking Britons. It is the same root that gave "Welsh" and "Wales," and it originally meant something like "foreigners" before narrowing to a specific people. Cornwall is "Cornwēalas" in Old English: the "wealas" of the Cornish peninsula, the Britons who had survived there when the Saxons arrived. The "Corn" part is generally linked to the Brittonic name of the region, though scholars debate its exact meaning. Cornwallis is a surname built on that same place-name, and it reached English through the Cornwall-derived family name rather than as a common word. In that form, it passes its history down as a personal name, so the "wealas" root survives in the spelling without any trace of its original sense of "foreigner."