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Lõo (Lõo)
Short for Lõoke and Lõokene, see Lõokese, where both the ‑ke and ‑kene endings are diminutives, short and long form respectively. An odd word of Proto-Germanic origin, *laiwarikōn- or, *laiwazikōn-, losing the ‘w’ to give Eng. ‘lark’, Swed. lärkor, Ger. Lerchen, etc., as well as lõo and leevike (see Leevikese) and does not appear to exist as a standalone word anymore. Estonian diminutives are to linguists what “the one that got away” is to anglers, magnifying (or minimizing) with each telling, in which another level of diminution can be tacked onto the previous one recursively, as a form or re-emphasis, and ‘some people’, mentioning no names, suspect that the long-form ‑kene diminutive is nothing less than a ‑ne diminutive of the ‑ke diminutive. Ignoring the yellow polka-dots for the minute (if you’ll excuse the pun), an “itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikini” (plural in Est., dammit) could, under very strained circumstances, translate as bikiinikesekesekesekesed – (Don’t!) – although they’d probably say pisikesekesekesekesed bikiinid. Or not. WTF…
Kivinuka (Kivinukk)
Stone/Stony corner (or paddock, see Tuulenurga) or, why not, ‘nook’, next to a wood of the same name attached to a former poolmõis (see Mõisa) first recorded as Ges. Kiwwiauk (1798, lit. ‘stone hole’ dependency) and thence, perhaps by an erroneous trasmission into Ges. Kiwwinuk (1871, ‘stone corner’), after a local kurisu, (from kuri, originally poor or wretched, but evolving through Bible-speak to angry, evil, devil… + suu>su, mouth, see Kura) translated variously as ‘karst gorge (cleft or clough)’ or sinkhole. Now a transport hub.
Joostimäe (Joostimägi)
Where one learns that the street is named after the adjoining hill called Joostimägi, without being apprised as to why the hill earned its name. It could be after the forename Joost, Estonian for Justus, but one never knows. The hill in question (see Mäe for discussion) adds another dimension, albeit very slim, to the Estonian concept of hill: that of an exceedingly economical pancake.
