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“Surface” is a newer word, coming to us in about 1600, according to Webster’s, from the Middle French, which had by then changed the Latin “super” into “sur.”

Civility derives, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, from both the Latin civilitas and the Middle French civilité.

The essay takes its name from Montaigne: essai, Middle French for an attempt or try.

“Community” is derived from the Anglo-Norman and Middle French communité, meaning, primarily, “joint ownership.”

For more than 150 years franchising–from the Middle French word franchir, “to free”–has given countless thousands a turnkey chance to become their own bosses.