Why called Earth?

[Flasheart]

As this planet is 71% Water and Only 29% Earth - why is the place called Earth and not Water..?

[Gaz]

good point mayb cause we live on the earth not the water. So it sounds right to say i live on earth.

[Quizmonster]

The modern English word 'earth' simply comes from the Old English 'eorthe' and that word is more or less duplicated in every Germanic/Teutonic language of Europe. The only suggestion that it is named after anything is one that says it might - just possibly - relate to a very ancient word for 'plough', which has obvious 'earthy' connections. As Ansteyg suggests, much more of the planet is solid than it is liquid.

[New Forester]

If it depends upon what it's mostly made of, perhaps it should be called "Molten Iron"...? The moon would be "Solid Rock", & both are orbiting "White Hot Plasma, etc etc

[sprogglin]

sorry New Forester, but the majority of the Earth's volume is solid, or sub-solid rock. Mostly ultrabasic dunites' lherzolites and peridotites. these make up the Upper mantle and basal crust. Below this the Lower Mantle is also rock and mostly solid. only a very small percentage is liquid rock. The outer core may be an iron/nickel based alloy liquid, but the inner core is solid.

[sprogglin]

p.s the sun isn't plasma, nor is most of it as hot as is imagined.

[andytreble99]

you are assuming that the term Earth which we know to mean soil (or the bit of the planet we walk on!) came before the naming of the planet. isn't it feasible that the planet was known as earth first & then when people started ploughing/digging the soil they referred to digging the earth because they were essentially digging at the planet earth ??

[Quizmonster]

Andy, re your point about the naming-sequence, my earlier response referred to the fact that the source of the word 'earth' was in the old Teutonic languages. Here's what The Oxford English Dictionary has to say on the matter (quote):

"Men's notions of the shape and position of the earth have so greatly changed since Old Teutonic times...that it is very difficult to arrange the senses and applications of the word in any historical order."

If the scholars of the OED cannot put these usages into any sort of accurate sequence, it's a certainty that no-one here on AnswerBank is going to be able to! And does it really matter in terms of the "earth V water" point in the question itself? Cheers

[New Forester]

Point(s) taken, Sprogglin. So how much of the "Earth" is actually something you could grow spuds in? (I'll stick to biology now...)