Börsi (Börs)
Exchange, stock exchange. Once known by the name of Kilstoa kangialune or guildhall archway. German Börse (stock exchange > purse), French bourse and English purse share the same etymology, from Greek βύρσα, hide, leather, through low Latin bursa, small bag with drawstrings (hence expression ‘to purse one’s lips’) in which money was kept, to modern-day purse and stock exchange. The story of a 14th‑C Bruges family, van de Borse or Van Der Burse, at whose house local and Venetian merchants used to meet and do business may well be apocryphal or incidental. Popular French etymology has often suggested that the bourse was kept against the groin, a site, Lord Varys tells me, of great physical sensitivity and awareness and, true to form, one of the earliest uses (1278) of the term bourse (Mod. Fr. les bourses) was scrotum. And where better to keep a bag containing your valuables than next to another bag containing your valuables?