"L" Word Origins

leglet

Origin

From leg + -let.

Lego

Latin

From the Danish toy company Lego, whose name was shortened from the Danish phrase leg godt, "play well". Coincidentally, lego is also a Latin word meaning "I put together".

legover

Origin

From get one's leg over.

Legrand

French

Borrowed from French Legrand (literally “Great, Grand”).

legume

Origin

Borrowed from French légume, from Latin legūmen (“bean”). Doublet of legumen.

legwork

Origin

From leg plus work.

Leh

German

Two main origins: * Borrowed from German Leh, perhaps an altered spelling of Löh. * Borrowed from Khmer.

lei

Origin

Borrowed directly from Hawaiian lei.

Leia

Origin

From the name of a princess in the American fantasy film Star Wars (1977).

Leicester

Old English

From Middle English Ledecestre, itself from an Old English name combining a river-name element with "ceaster," meaning a fortified Roman town.

leicestershire

Origin

From Old English Lægreċeastresċīr. The middle and last element are ceaster (“town, city”) and scir (“district”), common in placenames. The first element is probably from the former name of the river Soar, *Ligora, *Ligera, of Celtic/Brythonic origin, from Proto-Celtic *legyā (“sediment”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”), similar to the French river Loire. By surface analysis, Leicester + -shire.

leigh

Old English

From Old English lēah ("clearing in a forest"), the same root that gives many English place names ending in "-ley" or "-leigh."

Leighton

Origin

Various place names in England, Old English leac (“leek”) + tun (“settlement”), also in the sense of a herb garden.

Leila

Arabic

From Arabic لَيْلَى (laylā). Taken into English usage through nineteenth-century literature.

Leipzig

German

Borrowed from German Leipzig, from Slavic.

leisure

Latin

From Anglo-Norman leisir, from Old French loisir, "to be permitted", ultimately from Latin licere, "to be allowed" — the same root behind license.

leisurely

Origin

From leisure plus the suffix -ly.

Leith

Origin

From river-names derived from Proto-Brythonic *lleɨθ (“moist”) (compare Welsh llaith).

leitmotif

Origin

From German Leitmotiv (“leading motif”), from leiten (“to lead”) + Motiv (“motif”), originally used to describe Wagnerian opera. The spelling was influenced by motif.

lek

Swedish

The biology sense comes from Swedish lek, "child's play" (from leka, "to play"); the currency name is unrelated, drawn from Albanian usage.

lekker

Origin

From Afrikaans lekker, from Dutch lekker.

Leland

Irish

Shortened from McLeland, McClellan, from Irish Mac Giolla Fhaoláin, "son of servant of (Saint) Faolán (=Little Wolf)".

LEM

Origin

* As a Dutch and North Germanic surname, shortened from Lambrecht or Lempert. See Lambert. * As a Chinese surname, spelling variant of Lim.

leman

Origin

From Middle English lemman, variant of leofman, from Old English *lēofmann ("lover; sweetheart"; attested as a personal name), equivalent to lief + man ("beloved person"). In the past, incorrectly asserted to derive from French l'aimant (“the [male] lover”).

lemel

Latin

From Middle English lymail, via Anglo-Norman limaille, ultimately from Latin limare ("to file"), the same root as "file."

lemme

Origin

Written form of a reduction of let me.

lemming

Old Norse

From Norwegian and Danish lemming, ultimately from Old Norse. Sense 2 comes from a persistent myth that lemmings mindlessly march off cliffs in large groups — they don't, but the story stuck.

lemniscus

Origin

Borrowed from Latin lēmniscus (“pendent ribbon”), from Ancient Greek λημνῐ́σκος (lēmnĭ́skos), from Λῆμνος (Lêmnos, “a Greek island Lemnos”) + -ίσκος (-ískos, “noun-forming diminutive suffix”).

lemon

Old French

From Old French lymon, ultimately from Arabic laymūn, tracing back through Persian and Sanskrit — a distant cousin of the word lime.

lemonade

French

From French limonade, built from lemon plus the suffix -ade (as in orangeade).

lemur

Latin · 1754

From Latin lemures, "spirits of the dead" — the naturalist Carl Linnaeus chose the name in 1754 because of the animals' ghostly nocturnal habits and slow, silent movements.

lemures

Origin

From Latin lemurēs. See lemur.

lemuria

Origin

From Latin Lemuria.

Lena

Russian

The female name is from the Scandinavian, German and Russian pet form of Helena, Magdalena and Yelena (also spelled Elena). The river in Yakutia is from Russian Лена (Lena), from Evenki Елюенэ (Jeljujenə, “the Large River”). Compare to Yakut Өлүөнэ (Ölüöne). (Norwegian river): Probably related to Old Norse leir (“clay”) (see the references). (Town in Toten): From Old Norse lein.

lenape

Origin

Borrowed from Unami Lënape / lënape.

lend

Old English

From Old English lǣnan, "to grant or give as a loan" — related to the noun "loan" itself.

lender

Middle English

From Middle English lendare, leendare, variants of lenner, lenere, equivalent to lend + -er.

lene

Latin

An anglicised form of Latin lēnis ("smooth, gentle").

length

Old English

From Old English lengþu, built from "long" plus a suffix used to form abstract nouns — the same pattern that turns "strong" into "strength."

lengthen

Origin

From length + -en.

lengthsome

Origin

From length + -some.

lenience

Origin

From Latin lēn(iō) (“to soften, soothe”) -i- + -ence, from lēnis (“soft”).

leniency

Latin

From Latin lenis, "soft, gentle" — the same root behind "lenient."

lenient

Latin

From Latin lēnīre, "to soften or soothe," from lēnis, "soft, mild."

lenify

Origin

From Latin lēnis (“soft, mild”) + -ify. Compare French lénifier. See lenition.

Lenin

Russian

Transliteration of Russian Ле́нин (Lénin), probably due to the use of a passport of a friend, Nikolay Lenin, whose surname originated from the Siberian Lena river. It is commonly believed that the Lena derives its name from the original Even-Evenk name Elyu-Ene, which means "the Large River". By surface analysis, Lena + -in, "the man from the Lena". Another street name of a fellow Old Bolshevik conspirator, Stalin (“the man of steel”), is comparable as an alias based on an alleged attribute; and Bukharin is morphologically comparable as "a person from said place" (Bukhara + -in) but was Nikolai Bukharin's real surname rather than a street name.

Leningrad

Origin · 1924

Named after Vladimir Lenin following his death in 1924; renamed back to Saint Petersburg in 1991.

lenitive

Origin

From Latin lēnīt(us) (“softened”) + -ive, from lēniō (“to soften, soothe”), from lēnis (“soft”).