"P" Word Origins

pineapple

Middle English

Originally meant "pine cone" in Middle English (pine + apple, "apple" once meaning any fruit); the name was transferred to the tropical fruit because of its resemblance to a large pine cone.

pinecone

Origin

From pine + cone.

Pineda

Spanish

From Spanish Pineda.

pinewood

Origin

From pine + wood.

Piney

Origin

From pine + -y.

ping

Origin

Originally imitative of a short, sharp sound; the computing sense comes from the ping network utility, itself named for sonar pings.

Pinged

Welsh

Probably from Welsh.

pingle

Origin

Perhaps from pin (“to impound”).

pingrang

Origin

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 平壤 (Píngrǎng).

pinhead

Origin

From pin + head, originally describing the literal small round tip of a pin.

pinheaded

Origin

From pin + headed; compare pinhead.

pinion

Origin

From Middle English pynyon, from Old French pignon, from Latin penna (“feather”).

pink

Origin

The color sense may come from the flower called a "pink," whose petals have a delicately notched edge — the color name followed the flower, not the other way around.

pinken

Origin

From pink + -en.

Pinkerton

Origin · 1819

Named after Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884), the Scottish-American detective who founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago.

pinkie

Dutch

From Dutch pinkje, "little finger."

pinko

Origin

From pink + -o, a variation of red (“Communist”, noun), as pink is a lighter, more diluted form.

pinky

Dutch

From Dutch pinkje, diminutive of Dutch pink (“little finger”). Cognate with West Frisian pinke (“pinky”), dialectal English pink (“something small or tiny”), and perhaps to Old English pinca (“a point”). Compare also German Low German Pink (“penis”), English pintle (“penis”).

pinna

Origin

From Latin pinna (“dorsal fin; wing, feather”). Doublet of pen, penna, and panne.

pinnacle

Latin

From Latin pinna, "a point or peak," the same root that gives English "pin."

pinnule

Origin

From Latin pinnula.

Pinocchio

Origin · 1883

From the title character of Carlo Collodi's 1883 story The Adventures of Pinocchio, a wooden puppet whose nose grew whenever he told a lie.

pinochle

French

Possibly from an Austro-Bavarian pronunciation of the German Binokel, itself from French binocle ("pince-nez"), the name of a related card game.

pinot

French

Borrowed from French pinot, related to pin ("pine"), possibly describing the cone-shaped clusters of grapes.

pinpoint

Origin

From pin + point, literally "the point of a pin" — used figuratively for extreme precision.

pint

Vulgar Latin

From Old French pinte, likely from Vulgar Latin pincta, "a mark used to show a measured level."

pinter

Origin

From pint + -er.

pintle

Origin

From Middle English pyntel, from Old English pintel (“penis”), from Proto-West Germanic *pint(i), from Proto-Germanic *pint- (“protrusion”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“peg, tip, protruding point, edge”), equivalent to pin + -le. Cognate with North Frisian pint (“male member, penis”), West Frisian pyt (“male member, penis”), Dutch piet (“penis”), German Low German and German Pint (“penis”), West Flemish pint, piet (“tip, spike, penis”), Danish pint, pintel (“penis”), Norwegian dialectal pintol (“penis”), dialectal Swedish pitt (“penis”). More at pin, pen.

pinto

Spanish

Borrowed from Spanish pinto, "painted" or "mottled."

piny

Origin

From pine + -y.

pioneer

Old French

From Old French peonier, "foot soldier," which developed the sense of someone who goes ahead to clear the way.

pious

Latin

From Latin pius, "dutiful, devout, kind," related to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "pure."

pip

Latin

From Middle English pippe, tracing back to Latin pituita ("phlegm, mucus"), an unusual detour before it settled on "seed."

pipage

Origin

From pipe + -age.

pipe

Old English

From Old English pipe, "a tube or musical wind instrument," from Proto-West Germanic roots imitating a chirping or piping sound.

pipelaying

Origin

From pipe + laying.

pipeline

Origin

From pipe + line, describing a line of connected pipes.

piper

Origin

From pipe + -er, "one who pipes."

pipes

Origin

(vocal capacity): As if one's lungs were composed of pipework.

pipework

Origin

From pipe + work.

pippin

Old French

From Middle English pipin, borrowed from Old French pepin ("a seed") — the same root as "pip".

pippy

Origin

From pip + -y.

piquancy

Origin

From piquant + -cy.

piquant

Origin

Borrowed from Middle French piquant (“pricking, stimulating, irritating”), present participle of piquer, possibly from Old French pikier (“to prick, sting, nettle”). Doublet of picong. Related to pike.

piquantness

Origin

From piquant + -ness.

pique

French

From French piquer, "to prick, sting", which also gives English picket; the noun sense of wounded pride came into English first.

piquet

Origin

From French piquet.

piracy

Medieval Latin · 1600

From Medieval Latin piratia, ultimately from Greek peirateia. English extended the word from actual sea robbery to unauthorized copying in the late 1600s, when the Crown's printing monopolies made unlicensed book printers seem like "pirates" attacking legitimate trade — a sense that later carried over naturally to music, film, and software.