“Bob,” many of my Google-adverse friends ask at this time of year, “what does the word ‘crèche’ mean?”

Well, my little Wikipedia-bereft amigos, crèche comes from the Latin word cripia which means crib or cradle.

Unless you are British. The British, being British, have a completely different meaning for the word, mainly, I suppose, so they can have another excuse to complain about North American English. The British sided with the French on this one and think that a crèche refers to a day-care center.