"F" Word Origins

felicitation

Origin

From felicitate + -ion.

felicitator

Origin

From felicitate + -or.

felicitous

Origin

From felicity + -ous.

felicitousness

Origin

From felicitous + -ness.

felicity

Latin

From Old French felicité, from Latin fēlīcitās, "happiness, good fortune," from fēlīx, "fortunate, fruitful."

felid

Origin

By surface analysis, an appellativization from Felid(ae) minus -ae (a pattern that recurs with many -idae names); by surface analysis, feline + -id.

feline

Latin

From Latin fēlīnus, from fēlēs, "cat" or "wildcat."

Felipe

Portuguese

Borrowed from Portuguese and Spanish Felipe.

Felix

Latin

From Latin Fēlīx (literally “happy, lucky”).

fell

Old English

From Old English fellan/fiellan, "to cause to fall," the causative partner of "fall" — literally "to make (something) fall."

fellah

Origin

Borrowed from Arabic فَلَّاح (fallāḥ, “peasant”), from Classical Syriac ܦܠܚܐ (“worker; peasant”). Attested since 1743.

fellate

Origin

Back-formation from fellatio on the basis of -ate (verb-forming suffix), from Latin fellō (“suck”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suck, to suckle”).

fellatio

Latin · 1919

A learned 19th-century borrowing from Latin fellatio, from fello ("to suck"). It first showed up in medical writing, and a 1919 California Supreme Court ruling actually struck down an anti-fellatio law because the state constitution required statutes to be written in English — fellatio was still considered Latin at the time.

feller

Middle English

From Middle English fellere, feller; equivalent to fell + -er.

fellow

Middle English

From Middle English felowe, ultimately from Old Norse félagi, literally "one who lays down money together (with others)" — the same root that gives us "fee" and "lay."

fellowship

Middle English

From Middle English felowschipe, built from "fellow" plus "-ship" — the state of being fellows together.

felon

Medieval Latin

From Old French felon ("evil, wicked"), from Medieval Latin fellonem, of uncertain deeper origin. It shares a root with "fell" in the sense of "cruel, fierce."

felonious

Middle English

From Middle English *felonious (implied in feloniously; compare felonous); equivalent to felony + -ous.

felonize

Origin

From felony + -ize.

felony

Old French

From Old French felonie ("wickedness, evil deed"), from felon ("evildoer").

felt

Old English

From Old English felt, going back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to beat" — felt is made by beating and pressing fibers together, not weaving them.

Felton

Old English

From Old English feld (“field”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).

fem

Origin

Clipping of feminine.

female

Latin

From Old French femelle, from Latin femella ("young woman"), a diminutive of femina ("woman"). Its modern spelling was reshaped in English under the influence of "male," even though the two words aren't actually related.

feminine

Latin

From Old French feminin, from Latin femininus, from femina ("woman").

feminineness

Origin

From feminine + -ness.

femininity

Middle English

From Middle English femynynytee, femyninytee, variants of femynyte (archaic modern English feminity), equivalent to feminine + -ity.

feminism

Latin · 1837

Borrowed from French féminisme around 1837, from Latin femina ("woman"). It originally meant simply "the state of being feminine" in English before taking on its modern political sense around 1895.

feminist

Latin

First attested in 1852. Ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”). See also feminine, feminism.

femme

French

Borrowed directly from French femme ("woman").

femme fatale

French

A direct borrowing from French, literally 'fatal woman' or 'deadly woman'. The plural in careful use is femmes fatales.

femoral

Latin

From Latin femoralis, from femur ("thigh").

femur

Latin

Borrowed directly from Latin femur ("thigh").

fen

Old English

From Old English fenn ("marsh, mud"), from a very old Indo-European root meaning "bog" or "mire."

fence

Middle English

A shortening of Middle English "defence" — a fence is, at root, simply a thing that defends or encloses.

fencer

Origin

From fence + -er.

fencing

Middle English

From Middle English fensing, equivalent to fence + -ing.

fend

Latin

A shortened form of Middle English "defenden" ("to defend"), from Latin defendo.

fender

Origin

From "fend" plus the agent suffix "-er" — literally, something that fends things off.

fennel

Latin

From Old English finugl, ultimately from Latin faeniculum, a diminutive of faenum ("hay").

fentanyl

Origin

A coined pharmaceutical name built from "phenethyl" and "anilide," reflecting its chemical structure.

Fenton

Middle English

From Middle English Fenton, from Old English fenn (“fen, marsh”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).

Fenwick

Old English

From Old English fenn (“fen, marsh”) + wīc (“abode, dwelling-place”), equivalent to fen + -wick.

feral

Latin

From Latin ferus ("wild, savage") plus the adjective suffix "-al."

Ferdie

Spanish

From Ferdinand + -ie, with the root itself from Spanish Ferdinando.

Ferdinand

Spanish

From Spanish Ferdinando, from Proto-Germanic *fardiz (“journey”) + *nanþaz (“daring”) (from the root of *ninþaną (“to be daring”)). * (Uranus): The moon is named after a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest. * (Philippines): Named after Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos

Fergie

Origin

A clipped, affectionate form of "Ferguson," the tractor maker's name, plus "-ie."

Ferguson

Origin

From Fergus + -son, translation of Gaelic MacFhearguis, "son of Fergus".