Upon my discovery that the words rage and outrage are not etymologically related, I was truly taken aback. The term rage made its way into the English language in the thirteenth century from Old French raige, which can be traced back to Latin rabies meaning “madness” (and is also the root of the English word rabieskebh, which translates to “violent”. On the other hand, outrage is another French loanword from the thirteenth century, originating from the term oultrage which meant “excess” (the concept being that when something becomes excessive, it becomes outrageous), derived from Vulgar Latin ultraticum meaning “going beyond”. The root of ultra is the familiar Latin word ultra, stemming from PIE al still signifying “beyond”. Due to pronunciation, oultrage was rebracketed as outrage, giving rise to the modern word.
