Spa

Spa is a municipality in the province of Liege in eastern Belgium. The town sits on natural mineral springs that have been used since at least the 1300s. The name's origin is disputed — it may come from the Walloon word espa, meaning 'spring' or 'fountain,' or from the Latin spargere, 'to scatter' or 'to sprinkle.' What is not disputed is that by the 1500s, Spa was the most famous health-water destination in Europe.

Henry VIII's court physician praised the waters in 1544. Peter the Great visited in 1717. By the 1700s, 'taking the waters at Spa' was a standard prescription for European aristocrats with real or imagined ailments. The English word 'spa' first appeared in the early 1600s, initially referring specifically to the Belgian town, then to any place with mineral springs, and finally to any establishment offering water-based treatments.

The town's monopoly on the word dissolved slowly. Bath in England, Baden-Baden in Germany, Karlovy Vary in Bohemia — these were all 'spas' by the 1800s. The generalization continued: by the twentieth century, a spa could be a hotel with a hot tub, a room with a massage table, or a section of a department store selling face creams. The word shed its mineral springs, its medical pretensions, and its Belgian specificity.

Modern Spa, Belgium, has about 10,000 residents. It hosts a famous Formula One circuit — the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps — and still operates its thermal baths. But the town's name has been so thoroughly generalized that most English speakers have no idea 'spa' is a place. They think it was always a common noun.