Q 01/05

From which Latin word, meaning shadow, does umbrella derive?

A) Umbo

B) Umbra

C) Ombra

D) Umber

Answer · why

B) Umbra

Umbra is Latin for shade, and shade was the point: the word reached English from Italian around 1600 as the name of a sunshade, and only in rainy Engl...

Q 02/05

What does the word parasol literally shield you from?

A) The rain

B) The wind

C) The sun

D) The snow

Answer · why

C) The sun

The sun: Italian parasole means 'protection from the sun', and French later borrowed its first half to build parachute, 'protection from a fall'.

Q 03/05

Which French phrase named a 19th-century parasol sturdy enough to double as an umbrella?

A) Chapeau-bras

B) En-tout-cas

C) Porte-monnaie

D) Passe-partout

Answer · why

B) En-tout-cas

En-tout-cas means 'in any case': the parasol was built to cope whether the day brought sunshine or a shower.

Q 04/05

Umbrellas were once called gamps in Britain after a character by which author?

A) Dickens

B) Trollope

C) Austen

D) Thackeray

Answer · why

A) Dickens

Dickens gave Mrs Gamp, the tipsy nurse of Martin Chuzzlewit, a big, baggy umbrella she was never seen without, so readers took her name for the thing ...

Q 05/05

Biologists call the rounded body of which sea creature its umbrella?

A) Sea urchin

B) Jellyfish

C) Sea anemone

D) Manta ray

Answer · why

B) Jellyfish

Jellyfish squeeze that umbrella to push themselves through the sea, even though the animal is about 95 per cent water.