"D" Word Origins

dearie

Origin

From dear plus the diminutive suffix -ie.

dearly

Old English

From Old English deorlice, built on dear plus -ly.

dearth

Old English

From Old English roots related to dear (in the sense of "costly"), reflecting how scarcity drives prices up.

dearthful

Origin

From dearth + -ful.

dearthy

Origin

From dearth + -y.

deary

Origin

From dear plus -y, an alternate spelling of dearie.

deassert

Origin

From de- + assert.

death

Old English

From Old English death, from a Proto-Germanic root related to the verb die.

deathbed

Old English

From Old English deathbedd, a straightforward compound of death and bed.

deathly

Old English

From Old English deathlic, built from death plus -lic (the ancestor of -ly).

deathsman

Origin

From death + -s- + -man.

deathtrap

Origin

A straightforward compound of "death" + "trap" — a trap that leads to death.

Deauville

French

From the French town of the same name.

deb

Origin

A clipping of "debutante" or "debut."

debacle

French

From French débâcle ("a breaking up" or "unleashing"), from débâcler, "to unbar" — originally used for ice breaking up on a river and the flood that followed.

debacular

Origin

From debacle.

debaptism

Origin

From de- + baptism.

debar

Origin

From Anglo-Norman debarrer.

debark

Origin

From French débarquer, from de- (Old French des-) + barque (“bark, small ship”).

debase

Origin

From de- + base, from Old French bas, from Latin bassus. Cognate with Spanish debajo (“under, beneath, below”). Compare abase.

debatable

Old French

From Old French debatable, built from "debate" + the suffix "-able."

debate

Latin

From Old French debatre, literally "to beat down," from Latin battuere, "to beat" — the same root that gives us "battle" and "batter."

debation

Origin

From debate + -ion. The formation is nonstandard because this word does not contain the suffix -ate.

debauchee

Origin

From French débauché.

debaucher

Origin

From debauch + -er.

debauchery

Origin · 1642

From "debauch" + the noun-forming suffix "-ery," first recorded around 1642.

Debbie

Origin

Formed from Deborah plus the affectionate ending "-ie".

Debby

Origin

From Deborah plus "-y"; the adjective sense is an informal derivation from "debutante".

debilitate

Origin

From debilitatus, the past passive participle of Latin dēbilitō (“to weaken, debilitate”), from the adjective dēbilis (“weak”), itself from de- + habilis (“able”). Equivalent to Latin dēbilitō + -ate (verb-forming suffix; adjective-forming suffix).

debilitation

Origin

From Middle French débilitation.

debility

Origin

From Middle English debylite, from Old French debilité (French débilité), from Latin dēbilitās (“weakness”), from dēbilis (“weak”), from dē- + habilis (“able”).

debit

Latin

From Latin debitum, "what is owed" — the same root that gives us "debt" (they are doublets, two words descended from the same Latin source).

debonair

Old French

From Old French de bon aire, literally "of good stock" or "of good breeding."

Deborah

Hebrew

From the Hebrew name דְּבוֹרָה (Dvora), meaning "bee".

Debra

Origin · 1900

A twentieth-century spelling variant of Deborah.

debrief

Origin

From "de-" + "brief" — the reverse of briefing someone before a task.

debris

Old French

From French débris, from Old French debrisier, "to break apart" — ultimately from a Germanic root meaning "to break violently."

debs

Origin

Clipping of debutante or debut + -s (hypocoristic suffix).

debt

Latin

From Old French dete, from Latin debitum, "what is owed." The silent "b" was added later by scholars imitating the Latin spelling — it was never pronounced in English.

debtholder

Origin

From debt + holder.

debtor

Latin

From Old French detour, from Latin debitor, "one who owes" — built the same way as "debt" + "-or."

debug

English

From de- meaning to remove, plus bug in the sense of a fault or defect in a machine, an engineering usage that predates computing.

Debussy

French

A French surname, borrowed into English usage mainly through the fame of the composer.

debut

French

From French début, from débuter, "to begin" — originally connected to "but," meaning a target or goal in a game.

debutant

Origin

From French débutant, equivalent to debut + -ant.

debutante

French

From French débutante, the feminine form of a word meaning "one who is beginning."

Dec

Origin

A clipped form of Declan; the abbreviation sense comes from clipping "declared".

decad

Origin

Doublet of decade and dekad. By surface analysis, dec- + -ad.