Another collection of everyday words you probably had no idea were inspired by the Catholic Church.

BEG

Meaning: To ask people for money or something else of value.

Background: In the twelfth century Lambert de Begue, an Italian cleric, founded an order of mendicant monks (friars who lived entirely on donations they solicited from the public). His name - pronounced beg - eventually became synonymous with the way his followers made their living.

PANTS

Meaning: Trousers

Background: Saint Pantaleone was a Christian physician who was beheaded in the fourth century during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. His name is strikingly similar to the battle cry of the city of Venice, Piante Lione! ("Plant the Lion!"), so much so that Venetians made him a patron saint ... and often painted him wearing the flared trousers that were popular in the city. By the eighteenth century the garment was so closely associated with him that they were known as pantaleones, a term that Americans abbreviated to "pants."

LOBBY

Meaning: The open public area of an office building or hotel.

Background: In the Middle Ages when monks were the only educated people in many towns, illiterate peasants depended on them for help with letter writing, legal aid, and other services. Many monasteries built vine-covered walkways (called lobias in German) to accommodate the people waiting for assistance. The word lobia was adopted into the English language as the word "lobby," which eventually came to mean any public waiting area.

DUMBBELLS

Meaning: A small weight used in exercise.

Background: Church bells were an important part of life during the Middle Ages, and ringing them properly required a surprising amount of skill. But it was almost impossible for beginners to practice without driving townspeople crazy from the noise ... at least until someone invented a set of dumb bells - weights suspended from ropes - that worked just like the real bells, except that they didn't make any noise. Working with the heavy weights developed the user's bell-ringing skills and his physique, so much so that non-bellringers began using them to get into shape. The name "dumbbell" came to apply to any set of weights that helped you get in shape ... whether or not they had anything to do with bells.

FILBERT

Meaning: Another name for a hazelnut.

Background: One variety of French hazelnuts ripens on or around August 20, Saint Philibert's Day. The French nicknamed them noix de filbert, a name the English later shortened to "filberts."

GARDEN

Meaning: A place set aside for growing fruits and vegetables.

Background: The Romans introduced horticulture to England in the first century A.D. - but when they abandoned the island in the fifth century, gardening died out except among monasteries and other religious institutions, whose gardens and orchards were often surrounded by walls or fences to guard against cattle and wild animals. These protected spaces became known as guardins, a name that eventually came to describe any planted plot of land ... whether or not it was guarded.

RAISING CAIN

Meaning: Causing trouble.

Background: The eighteenth century was an age in which children were supposed to be seen and not heard. Parents who raised rowdy, undisciplined children were said to be raising Cains: children who would grow up to be like the biblical Cain (who murdered his brother Abel and then denied responsibility when questioned by God). Over time, "raising cain" came to refer to the act of unruliness, not the child-rearing itself.

X

Meaning: The kiss symbol used at the end of letters.

Background: In the Middle Ages, illiterate peasants who couldn't sign their names on important documents wrote an X instead - the mark of Saint Andrew. On really important documents the peasant had to kiss the X as a further sign of his sincerity. By the twentieth century the X and its kiss were completely synonymous.