When someone makes a tense encounter worse, we say they have escalated the situation. When we ride on an escalator, we could say that we escalated to the second floor (but we don't, because that just sounds pretentious). You might think that both actions use the same word because it means going one level up. The word might mean that now, but the word "escalate" didn't exist until 1900 when "Escalator" was trademarked for a moving staircase device. Yes, it's a brand name. See, we already had a term for going higher, and it was "elevate." But you don't see charges of a provocateur or police elevating a situation because that sounds like they are making it better.
This is just one of several words for things that you think are named for another thing, but it's actually the other way around. Read about escalate and six other examples of names of things that didn't come from where you thought at Cracked.
(Image source: Know Your Meme)
Commenting on Neatorama will earn you NeatoPoints!