"B" Word Origins

Bores

Origin

Borrowed from Czech Boreš.

borg

Origin

A clipped form of "cyborg," itself a blend of "cybernetic" and "organism."

Borges

Portuguese

Borrowed from Portuguese and Catalan Borges.

Borgia

Italian

Borrowed from Italian Borgia, from Spanish Borja.

boring

Origin

From "bore" + "-ing."

Boris

Origin

Borrowed from Bulgarian, ultimately from an older Slavic name.

bork

Origin · 1987

The "attack a nominee" sense comes directly from Robert Bork, whose 1987 U.S. Supreme Court nomination was defeated after a fierce public campaign against him; the "break/damage" sense (mainly used about computers) developed later as unrelated slang.

born

Old English

From Old English "boren," the past participle of "beran" ("to bear, carry"), the same root as the verb "bear."

borne

Old English

From Old English "boren," the past participle of "beran" ("to carry, bear") — the same origin as "born," but "borne" kept the general "carried/endured" meaning.

Borneo

Portuguese

From Portuguese "Borneo," likely tracing back to a Sanskrit phrase meaning "island of Varuna" (a Hindu deity) — the same root as the name Brunei.

borough

Old English

From Old English "burh" ("stronghold, fortified town"), related to German "Burg" and the "-burg"/"-bury" endings found in many town names.

borrow

Old English

From Old English "borgian" ("to lend, pledge, borrow"), related to the idea of taking care of or vouching for something — ultimately connected to the word "bury" in an older sense of "protect."

borrower

Origin

From "borrow" + "-er."

borrowing

Origin

From "borrow" + "-ing."

borscht

Russian

From Yiddish borsht, itself from Russian or Ukrainian borshch — the traditional beetroot soup of Eastern Europe.

borstal

Origin

Inherited from Middle English *borstile, *borghstile, from Old English beorh (“a hill”) + stigel (“a stile”). The institutions are named after Borstal Prison in Borstal, Rochester, Kent, England.

Bosco

Italian

Borrowed from Italian Bosco.

Bose

Origin

From a colloquial Bengali word (bōs) describing this same tapping technique.

bosh

Ottoman Turkish · 1800

Borrowed into English from Ottoman Turkish boş, meaning "empty" or "unoccupied," after appearing in the popular 19th-century novels of James Morier.

bosky

Origin

From bosk + -y.

Bosnia

Origin

Named after the Bosna River, which runs through the region.

bosniak

Origin

Borrowed from Serbo-Croatian Bòšnjāk (“Bosniak”), from Bȍsna (“Bosnia”). Equivalent to Bosniac: Bosnia+-ac.

bosom

Old English

From Old English bosm, going back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to swell or curve" — related to words for "breast" and "cheek" in several other old languages.

boson

Origin · 1945

Named after the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, whose work on particle statistics inspired the term; coined by physicist Paul Dirac in 1945.

boss

Dutch

From Dutch baas ("master"), originally a respectful term for an older relative; it took on its modern sense of "person in charge" in colonial New Amsterdam (now New York).

Bosse

French

As a French nickname surname, from bosse, "bump, hump."

bossy

Origin

Formed from "boss" plus the adjective-forming suffix "-y."

Boston

Origin

The American city was named after the English town of Boston, Lincolnshire, home to several early colonists.

Boswell

Origin · 1700

From James Boswell, the 18th-century biographer whose detailed, admiring record of Samuel Johnson's life and conversation became the model for the genre.

Bosworth

Old English

From Old English words meaning "cattle enclosure."

bot

Origin

Unknown. Possibly a modification of Scottish Gaelic boiteag (“maggot”), but the word already existed in Middle English, so the reverse direction of borrowing is likely. Possibly from Middle Low German [Term?].

botanic

Origin

From the Medieval Latin botanicus, perhaps via the French botanique, from the Ancient Greek βοτανικός (botanikós), from βοτάνη (botánē, “herb, pasture”).

botanical

Origin

Built from "botany" plus the adjective ending "-ical."

botanist

Origin

Formed from "botany" plus "-ist," the suffix for a person who practices a field.

botany

Origin · 1696

First recorded in English in 1696, formed as a back-formation from "botanic."

botch

Old English

From Middle English bocchen ("to mend"), of uncertain origin — possibly related to Old English words for repairing or improving something.

botcher

Origin

From Middle English bocchere, bochchare, equivalent to botch + -er.

bote

Origin

Learned borrowing from Middle English bōte (“advantage, benefit, profit; relief, salvation; atonement, amends, expiation; cure”), from Old English bōt (“help, relief, advantage, remedy; compensation for an injury or wrong; (peace) offering, recompense, amends, atonement, reformation, penance, repentance”), from Proto-West Germanic *bōtu, from Proto-Germanic *bōtō (“recompense”). Doublet of boot (inherited from the same Middle English word).

both

Old English

From Old English ba tha ("both the"), reinforced by a related Old Norse form — an old remnant of a grammatical form once used specifically for pairs of things.

bother

Origin

Borrowed from Scots bauther/bather, of uncertain ultimate origin, possibly related to old words for making a commotion or fuss.

botheration

Origin

From bother + -ation (suffix indicating an action or process, or its result).

bothersome

Origin

Formed from "bother" plus the suffix "-some," meaning "tending to cause."

Bothwell

Middle English

From Middle English words for "booth" and "well, spring."

Botox

Origin

A trademarked blend of "botulinum" and "toxin."

Botswana

Origin

From the Tswana language, formed from a prefix meaning "land of" plus "Tswana," the name of the country's major ethnic group.

Botticelli

Italian

Named after the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, on the idea that anyone chosen for the game should be at least as famous as he was.

bottle

Late Latin

From Old French boteille, from Late Latin butticula, a diminutive of buttis ("cask") — the same root that gives us "butt" as in a cask of wine.

bottleneck

Origin

From the literal narrow neck of a bottle, extended to mean any point that restricts flow.