Sorry, totally unrelated but fun memory: Iconoclast was the first word whose unexpected etymology I (mostly) worked out on my own. I was watching a vh1 documentary on iconoclasts, and I’d just had a biology class where I’d learned about acetoclastic bacteria. I had a eureka moment wherein I leapt to the conclusion that “breaking the mold” was an older saying than I expected. I wasn’t totally right on that, but I was still psyched to have broken it down correctly.