naked seeds in my garden

As usual, I had my nose in a gardening book today. I love to know why things happen, and this title grabbed me - Practical Science for Gardeners by Mary Pratt. I've been discovering why I shouldn't have abandoned the sciences in favor of the arts so many years ago. If I'd continued with my studies I'd have know why plants behave the way they do, and maybe I'd have killed a few less growing things along the way.

Perhaps, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I remembered the difference between Monocotyledones and Dicotyledones, but it was a surprise to read about naked seeds - gymnosperms.

Since it seemed likely that sperm referred to seed, the other part of the word must mean naked. Wait a minute? Was the original gym a place for naked people?

A quick look at the Online Etymology Dictionary confirmed my guess:

gymnasium
1590s, "place of exercise," from L. gymnasium "school for gymnastics," from Gk. gymnasion "public place where athletic exercises are practiced; gymnastics school," in plural, "bodily exercises," from gymnazein "to exercise or train," literally or figuratively, lit. "to train naked," from gymnos "naked" (see naked). Introduced to German 15c. as a name for "high school" (more or less paralleling a sense in Latin); in English it has remained purely athletic.

Okay, so that's going to make my imagination go wild when I walk past the local gym.

And what about an equestrian gymkhana? Well, it seems this word has a different origin, probably coming from the Hindustani as gend-khana, before being influenced by the word gymnasium and changing its first syllable.