Well . . . "sin" seems to go deeper than that. I've read a lot about the
etymology of this word, as it is currently used. Rather than try to bang
back through the stuff I looked at years ago, someone else has already
written it up:

Consider, for example, the etymology of the word �sin�.  It comes from the
Old English �synn�, which has the meaning of a crime and is associated
with doing evil. The Old Norse is �synd�, and the German S�nde. But its
inclusion in the Bible is as a translation from the Latin �peccatum,�
which doesn�t mean the same thing at all; its meaning is more in the sense
of a religious error. In the original Greek version of the New Testament,
the word is �hamartia,� which literally means to miss the target � a word
normally associated with archery. In biblical Hebrew, the generic word for
sin is het. It means to err, to miss the mark.

(http://www.wordsyoudontknow.com/2009/05/10-words-whose-etymology-you-dont-know/
-- I'm not quoting that as an authority, the same information is available
  from more scholarly sources. Rather, I am quoting that passage because
it's concise, something I don't have enough time to be.)

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
Bend, OR
KG6RCR

On 9/6/2009 9:40 AM Mike S wrote:

> At 10:31 AM 9/6/2009, David Beierl wrote...
>> Incidentally, the word "sin" literally means missing the
>> target you shot at.
>
> Where do you get that? The OED says "ORIGIN Old English, probably
> related to Latin sons 'guilty'." I would have guessed its roots to be
> in "sinister," which literally means "left," but has other meaning
> related to "sin."
>
> Is "frak" OK?
>