folk · falseen
sirloin
the story everyone tells
Sir
a knight's title
loin
the cut of beef
Sir Loin — the knighted roast
The tale everyone repeats: a king loved the roast so much he drew his sword and knighted it — ‘Arise, Sir Loin!’ (pinned variously on Henry VIII, James I, or Charles II).
but read it straight
A tall tale. ‘Surloine’ is in English from the early 1400s, from Old French surlonge — sur ‘above’ (Latin super) + longe ‘loin’ = the cut ABOVE the loin. The ‘sir-’ spelling is a 1620s accident (like ‘surname’ once written ‘sirname’); the knighting legend first surfaces in 1655 and was demolished by the philologist Skeat in 1882 — the word predates every king it's pinned on.
source · Old French surlonge = sur ‘above’ + longe ‘loin’; the knighting story is folk etymology — etymonline.com/word/sirloin