"C" Word Origins

From church + man. Compare kirkman and German Kirchmann.

From Middle English cherchewardeyn, chirchewardeyn, churchewardeyn, schyrsche wordeyn; equivalent to church + warden.

From church + yard, tracing back to Middle English chirch-ȝerd.

Inherited from West Midland Middle English churle (“person not of the nobility or clergy; serf, servant, simpleton, fellow”, East Midland Middle English cherl), from Old English ċeorl (“freeman ranking below a þegn but above a thrall; commoner, peasant; countryman, husbandman; man; husband”), from Proto-West Germanic *kerl, from Proto-Germanic *karilaz (“elder; man”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- (“to grow old; to mature”). Doublet of carl /carle, ceorl, and karl. Sense 2.1 (“rough, surly, ill-bred person”) is probably an extension of sense 1 (“free peasant of the lowest rank; person without royal or noble status; bondman, serf”) and sense 2.2 (“countryman, peasant, rustic”). Sense 2.3 (“person who is stingy”) was influenced by Nabal, who is described in the King James Version of the Bible as “churlish and evil in his doings”; when Nabal, a rich man, is asked to give provisions to David’s men, he replies, “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?” (1 Samuel 25:

From Old English cyrin/cyrne (the container) and cernan (to stir), of unclear deeper origin, related to Dutch karn and German Kirne.

Borrowed directly from Spanish churro.

From French chute, meaning "a fall".

Borrowed from Hindi/Urdu chatni.

From Yiddish חוצפּהדיק (khutspedik), from חוצפּה (khutspe, “chutzpah”).

Borrowed from Yiddish khutspe, ultimately from an Aramaic word meaning "audacity" or "boldness".

From Kyrgyz Чүй (Cüy).

From French, from Late Latin chȳlus, from Ancient Greek χυλός (khulós, “animal or plant juice”).

Borrowed from Mandarin cí.

Borrowed from Italian ciao, originally from a Venetian phrase meaning "your servant" — related to the word "slave".

Borrowed from Irish Ciarán.

From Latin cicada, believed to imitate the insect's sound.

Borrowed from Latin cicatrix.

From Latin "seselis," ultimately from Ancient Greek "séselis," the name for a related plant.

Named after the Roman statesman Cicero, because early European printers used a Latin edition of his letters as the standard text for setting this size of type.

Cichoraceae + -ous

From Old French cisdre/sidre, from Medieval Latin sicera, ultimately from a Hebrew word for a strong drink.

A clipped form of cigarette.

From Spanish cigarro, of uncertain deeper origin.

Borrowed from French cigarette, a diminutive of cigare (from Spanish cigarro) — literally a "little cigar".

From Spanish cilantro, related to Latin coriandrum, the source of the word "coriander".

Borrowed from Latin cilium (“eyelid”).

Diminutive of Priscilla

From Spanish cimarrón (“feral; maroon”).

From Cimmerian.

From Spanish cincha, meaning a girth or belt, ultimately from Latin cingulum.

Named after the Society of the Cincinnati, itself named for the Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

Ultimately from Hokkien, via Philippine Spanish Cinco, an alternative form of Sinco/Singco, which are historically transcriptions following Spanish orthography of a Hokkien name with honorific used as surnames since the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines.

From Old English sinder, meaning slag or dross; the spelling with "c" was later influenced by the unrelated French word cendre ("ashes").

From the classic fairy tale about a mistreated girl who is transformed and eventually marries a prince — the name blends "cinder" (ash, from her household chores) with a French-style diminutive ending.

20th-century variant spelling of Cindy.

Shortened from Lucinda and Cinderella. In the 20th century adopted as a pet form of Cynthia.

Borrowed from French cinéma, a clipping of cinématographe, coined by the Lumière brothers from Greek roots meaning "to write movement".

From cinema + the adjective suffix -tic.

From cinematograph + the agent suffix -er.

From "cinematograph" (an early word for a movie camera/projector) plus the suffix "-y", echoing the French cinématographie.

First attested in the mid-15th century. From Middle English cynabare, from Old French cinabre, from Latin cinnabaris, from Ancient Greek κιννάβαρι (kinnábari), of unknown origin.

From Old French cinnamone, from Latin cinnamomum, from Greek kinnamomon — ultimately traced by ancient writers to a Phoenician word, related to Hebrew qinnamon.

PIE word *pénkʷe From Middle English cynk, from Middle French cinq, from Latin cīnque, variant of quīnque. The archaic spelling cinq is taken from modern French cinq, whereas the standard spelling is perhaps influenced by Italian cinque or a misspelling of the French. The variant pronunciation /sæŋk/ is based on Modern French. Doublet of fin (“five currency units”), finnuf, five, pimp (“five”), ponzu, punch (“beverage”), and sengi (“currency”); related to Pompeii.

An initialism of chief information officer.

From Old French cyfre, ultimately from Arabic sifr meaning "zero" or "empty" — the same root that gives us the word "zero" itself.

Borrowed from Spanish Cipriano.

See circus.

A direct borrowing from Latin circa, meaning "around" or "about".