What is "ethel"

Ethel \Eth"el\, a. [AS. e[eth]ele, [ae][eth]ele. See Atheling.] Noble. [Obs.]

fem. proper name, originally a shortening of Old English Etheldred, Ethelinda, etc., in which the first element means "nobility."

Etymology 1 alt. The letter Œ/œ, or the rune ᛟ. n. The letter Œ/œ, or the rune ᛟ. Etymology 2

n. A kind of tree, perhaps a tamarisk, found in northern Africa and in Arabia, which has dark, bluish wood.

Ethel was the modern rock/ alternative channel on XM Satellite Radio. It is the daughter channel of Fred (ch 44), which covers alternative music from its birth through the early 1990s; and the sister channel of Lucy (ch 54), which plays only the most popular alternative hits from the 80s through 90s. Ethel plays the latest alternative music, today's top alternative hits, and recent hits. Some Ethel promos say "We pick up where Fred left off."

Ethel originated as a DJ-free and uncensored channel, but has since lost its "xL" explicit language rating, and is now hosted by a DJ every now and then. The channel was originally programmed by legendary-alternative programmer Rick Lambert 1 and former Stabbing Westward keyboardist, Walter Flakus. In April 2006, Steve Kingston (former Z100 and WXRK PD) began programming Ethel in an attempt to move the channel in a more FM minded direction.

Ethel was located on channel 47 on XM Satellite Radio and channel 834 on DirecTV.

As of November 12, 2008, the channel has been dropped and replaced by the Sirius channel Alt Nation as a result of the Sirius XM Merger. The last song was So Sad to Say by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

Ethel (also æthel) is an Old English word meaning "noble". It is frequently attested as the first element in Anglo-Saxon names, both masculine and feminine, e.g. Æthelhard, Æthelred, Æthelwulf; Æthelburg, Æthelflæd, Æthelthryth ( Audrey). It corresponds to the Adel- and Edel- in continental names, such as Adolph (Æthelwulf), Adalbert (Albert), Adelheid (Adelaide), Edeltraut and Edelgard. There would be some reason to believe that the word is actually taken from "aedilis" or "aedile", the Latin name of a Roman official, whose function was that of a magistrate and superintendent of public property. It was common that in smaller towns in the Roman era that the only public official was the aedile. Importantly, in later Roman times, the Aedile was in charge of the public treasury. The later clerical Latin translation of "aethel" as "clito" may be a reflection of the fact that there was no such formal position after the Roman civil authority disappeared. "Clito" was from "incluto" and an earlier Greek word that certainly did not mean "noble" in the sense of an inherited class status, but rather famous or illustrious.

Some of the feminine Anglo-Saxon names in Æthel- survived into the modern period (e.g. Etheldred Benett 1776–1845). Ethel was in origin used as a familiar form of such names, but it began to be used as a feminine given name in its own right beginning in the mid-19th century, gaining popularity due to characters so named in novels by W. M. Thackeray ( The Newcomes - 1855) and Charlotte Mary Yonge (The Daisy Chain whose heroine Ethel's full name is Etheldred - 1856); the actress Ethel Barrymore - born 1879 - was named after The Newcomes character. Notes & Queries published correspondence about the name Ethel in 1872 because it was in fashion. The feminine name's popularity peaked in the 1890. In the United States, it was the 7th most commonly given girl's name in the year 1894. Its use gradually declined during the 20th century, falling below rank 100 by 1940, and below rank 1000 in 1976. Ethel was also occasionally used as a male given name during the period of ca. the 1880s to 1910s, but never with any frequency (never rising above rank 400, or 0.02% in popularity)

• Ethel D. Allen (1929-1981), the first African-American woman to serve on Philadelphia City Council
• Ethel Anderson (1883–1958), Australian poet, essayist, novelist and painter
• Ethel Percy Andrus (1884–1967), educator and founder of AARP
• Ethel Armes (1876–1945), American journalist and historian
• Ethel Armitage (1873–1957), British archer and 1908 Olympic competitor
• Ethel Ayler (born 1934), American stage and film actress
• Ethel Azama (1934–1984), American jazz and popular singer
• Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959), American stage and screen actress
• Ethel Bentham (1861–1931), English doctor, politician and suffragette
• Ethel Blondin-Andrew (born 1951), Canadian politician and parliamentarian
• Ethel Catherwood (1908–1987), American high jump gold medalist in the 1928 Olympics
• Ethel Clayton (1882–1966), American silent film actress
• Ethel Roosevelt Derby (1891–1977), younger daughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
• Ethel Hatch (1869-1975), muse of Lewis Carroll
• Ethel Hays (1892–1989), American cartoonist and illustrator
• Ethel Kennedy (born 1928), American widow of Robert F. Kennedy
• Ethel Lang (1900-2015), British supercentenarian and the last Victorian
• Ethel MacDonald (1909–1960), Scottish anarchist, activist and propagandist
• Ethel Merman (1908–1984), American actress and singer
• Ethel L. Payne (1911–1991), African American journalist
• Ethel Rosenberg (1915–1953), American executed for espionage
• Ethel Schwabacher (1903–1984), American abstract expressionist painter
• Ethel Shannon (1898–1951), American silent film actress
• Ethel Smith (organist) (1902–1996), American organist and recording artist
• Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), English composer and women's suffrage leader
• Ethel Turner (1872–1958), Australian novelist and children's writer
• Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864–1960), English novelist and musician
• Ethel Waters (1896–1977), American blues and jazz vocalist and actress

• Big Ethel, from Archie Comics
• Ethel Hallow, from The Worst Witch book series by Jill Murphy
• Ethel Mertz, from the television program I Love Lucy
• Ethel Mertz, a Richard Christy character from The Howard Stern Show
• Ethel Skinner, in the British soap opera EastEnders
• Ethel Thayer, a character from On Golden Pond
• Ethel Blackmore, from Subnormality

Ethel is an English feminine given name.

It may also refer to:

• the Anglo-Saxon œ-rune, see Odal (rune)
• Œ, a ligature of the letters o and e, named after the rune

Ethel is a 2012 documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The subject of the documentary is Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. Ethel was scheduled to premiere on HBO later in 2012.

Rory Kennedy, one of their 11 children, asked her mother Ethel if she would be a part of a documentary. Opening with Ethel's memories about her family, the documentary has five days worth of interviews including Ethel's children. The Kennedy family is documented in home videos and pictures.

Rory called her mother's life one of the great untold stories.

The documentary is scored by Miriam Cutler.

Ethel is a New York based string quartet that was co-founded in 1998 by Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Todd Reynolds, violin; and Mary Rowell, violin. Unlike most string quartets, ETHEL plays with amplification and integrates improvisation into its performances. The group's current membership includes violinists Kip Jones and Corin Lee.

ETHEL performs original music as well as works by notable contemporary composers such as Julia Wolfe, John Zorn, Don Byron, Marcelo Zarvos, Pamela Z, Phil Kline, John King and many more. The group's 2004–2005 season culminated with a 45-city U.S. and European tour with the rock musicians Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren, which included an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Their 2005–2006 season included the Cantaloupe Music release of its second CD, Light, performances at BAM Next Wave Festival with choreographer Wally Cardona in New York, first-time performances in Miami (Florida), the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, performance at the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York as well as at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, and a monthly residency at Joe's Pub. In 2008 ETHEL worked with director Annie Dorsen to produce ETHEL’S TruckStop™ : The Beginning which was performed at BAM's Next Wave Festival. Months later, they offered another large scale performance, Wait for Green, presented by World Financial Center in the Winter Garden with choreographer Annie-B Parson. ETHEL returned to the TED Conference in 2010 as the house band, performing with Thomas Dolby, David Byrne and Andrew Bird. They performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in the summer of 2010, collaborating with Juana Molina, Dayna Kurtz, Tom Verlaine, Patrick A. Derivaz, Mike Viola and Adam Schlesinger. In 2011, ETHEL was an artist in residence at the Park Avenue Armory.

Members of the group performed or recorded with Bang on a Can, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, CONTINUUM, Sheryl Crow, Roger Daltrey, and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project.

In 2002 the string quartet founded ETHEL's Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit organization with a mission to support contemporary concert music with collaborative projects, commission of new works, and educational outreach. In keeping with this mission, ETHEL has been the string quartet in residence since 2005 with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project (NACAP), an affiliate program of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, which is dedicated to teaching Native American young people to compose concert music. In 2011 NACAP was presented with a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award by First Lady Michelle Obama.

ETHEL toured a program titled Tell Me Something Good with special guest Todd Rundgren in 2012. The program included Lou Harrison's Quartet Set, Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man, a new commission, Octet 1979, by Judd Greenstein, Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector by Terry Riley, Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt and Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, as well as an entire set of Todd Rundgren songs performed with Rundgren himself. ETHEL is the current resident ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum's Balcony Bar Also this season, ETHEL will present a multimedia program, ETHEL's Documerica, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica, launched in 1972. The program will feature new commissions from American composers; Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Ulysses Owens Jr., James "Kimo" Williams, and Mary Ellen Childs, and will include a visual component designed by visual artist Deborah Johnson. ETHEL's Documerica will premier at the Park Avenue Armory as part of its Under Construction series. For a second consecutive year, the Jerome Foundation has announced support of ETHEL's Foundation for the Arts HomeBaked program to commission new works from emerging New York City-based composers. ETHEL has announced that this season's composers will be Hannis Brown, Lainie Fefferman, Dan Friel and Ulysses Owens, Jr., with works premiering in Spring 2013. In 2014 Denison University announced that ETHEL will become their first ensemble in residence. In July 2016, Denison University announced that all four quartet members (Farris, Jones, Lawson and Lee) will receive honorary degrees, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. The degrees will be awarded during the college’s 176th Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 13, 2017.