nation [ME] This word came via Old French from Latin natio, from nasci, meaning ‘to be born’. The link between ‘country’ and ‘birth’ was the idea of a people sharing a common ancestry or culture. The Latin verb nasci is the source of many familiar English words connected with birth, among them innate [LME] inborn or natural; native [LME]; nativity [ME] birth; nature [ME]; naïve [E17th]; and renaissance (literally ‘rebirth’). Also related is the name of the former province of Natal in South Africa, which was first sighted by the explorer Vasco da Gama on Christmas Day 1497. He called it Terra Natalis or ‘land of the day of birth’, in recognition of Christ’s birth. A similar idea lies behind Noel [LME], ‘Christmas’, which is a French word that comes ultimately from Latin natalis. England is a nation of shopkeepers is supposed to have been Napoleon’s scornful dismissal of the enemy across the Channel. Napoleon was not the first to use the phrase, though; the economist Adam Smith and possibly also the American revolutionary Samuel Adams referred to ‘a nation of shopkeepers’ in 1776, and it was used of the Japanese in 1759.