"S" Word Origins

sulfane

Origin

From sulfo- + -ane.

sulfate

Latin · 1787

From French sulfate, coined in 1787 by chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau from Latin sulphur.

sulfur

Latin

From Middle English sulphur, via Anglo-Norman, ultimately from Latin sulpur/sulfur of uncertain origin. It displaced the native Old English word swefl.

sulfuric

French

From French sulfurique, built from sulfur plus the adjective ending -ic.

sulk

Old English

Believed to be a back-formation from sulky, ultimately traced to an Old English word meaning slothful or languid.

sulkiness

Origin

From sulky + -ness. Compare Middle English solcenesse, asolkenesse, Old English āsolcennes.

sulky

Origin

Related to sulk; the cart sense comes from the idea that it seats only one rider, "as if sulking" alone.

sullen

Old French

From Middle English soleyn, "alone," from Old French sole, "single." The meaning shifted from "solitary" to "morose" during Middle English.

sullied

Origin

From sully + -ied (suffix forming participial adjectives and past participal forms of verbs ending in -y).

sully

Old English

From Old English sylian, "to soil or defile," related to German sühlen and Swedish söla, both meaning "to sully."

sultan

Medieval Latin

From Arabic sultan, meaning "strength" or "authority," borrowed into English via Ottoman Turkish and Medieval Latin.

sultana

Italian · 1580

From Italian sultana, the feminine form of sultano, entering English in the 1580s.

sultry

Origin

From an obsolete verb sulter, a variant of swelter, combined with -y.

sulu

Spanish

Borrowed via Spanish from Tausug, ultimately from a word meaning "current" (of water) — also the source of the name of the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines.

sum

Latin

From Old French summe, from Latin summa, "highest point, total," from summus, "highest."

suman

Tagalog

From Tagalog suman.

Sumatra

Portuguese

From Portuguese Sumatra, ultimately from Sanskrit samudra, "sea," via Malay and Arabic.

Sumerian

Origin

Formed in English from Sumer plus the adjective ending -ian.

Sumida

Japanese

Borrowed from Japanese 墨田 (すみだ, Sumida).

summa

Latin

From Latin summa, "the highest" or "total" — the same root behind sum and summit.

summarize

Origin

From summary + the verb-forming suffix -ize.

summary

Medieval Latin

From Latin summa ("total, sum") plus the adjective ending -arius, via Medieval Latin summarius.

summat

Origin · 1700

A dialect contraction of "somewhat," recorded since the 1700s; some scholars think it grew out of "some that."

summate

Origin

From sum + -ate (verb-forming suffix).

summation

Origin

Built from sum plus the noun suffix -ation.

summer

Old English

From Old English sumor, going back through Proto-Germanic to a very old Indo-European root for "summer" — related to similar-sounding words across most Germanic languages.

summerhouse

Old English

From Old English sumerhūs, literally "summer house."

summers

Origin

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

summertime

Middle English

From Middle English somertime, a compound of summer and time.

summit

Latin

From Old French somet/sommet, a diminutive of som ("highest point"), ultimately from Latin summus ("highest").

summon

Latin

From Old French sumundre, going back to Latin summonēre ("to remind secretly"), from sub- + monēre ("to warn").

summoning

Origin

From summon + the noun-forming suffix -ing.

summons

Vulgar Latin

From Old French sumunce, from Vulgar Latin summonsa, related to summonēre ("to summon").

Sumner

Middle English

From Middle English sumner (“summoner”).

sumo

Japanese

Borrowed directly from Japanese sumō.

sump

Middle English

From Middle English sompe, related to Dutch and Low German words for a marshy pit — a doublet of the word swamp.

sumptuous

Latin

From Latin sūmptuōsus, from sūmptus ("expense"), itself from sūmō ("to take, spend").

sun

Old English

From Old English sunne, from a very old Germanic and Indo-European root shared by "sun" words across most European languages.

sunbae

Japanese

Borrowed from Korean seonbae ("senior"), and closely related to the Japanese word senpai.

sunbathe

Origin

A compound of sun and bathe.

sunbeam

Old English

From Old English sunnbēam, a compound of sun and beam.

sunblind

Origin

From sun + blind.

sunblock

Origin

A compound of sun and block.

sunbloom

Origin

From sun + bloom. Compare Saterland Frisian Sunnebloume, West Frisian sinneblom, Dutch zonnebloem, German Low German Sünnbloom, Sünnblööm, German Sonnenblume.

sunburn

Old English

From Old English sunbryne, a compound of sun and burn, found in similar forms across many Germanic languages.

sunburnt

Origin

From Middle English sunne brente, equivalent to sun + burnt.

sunburst

Origin

A compound of sun and burst.

sundae

Origin

Thought to be a playful respelling of "Sunday," possibly linked to selling ice cream as a treat on that day.