English dictionary, thesaurus, translations & etymology

Etymology — The origins of English words

Where do words come from? Trace the origin and history of any English word, from its Latin, Greek or Old English roots through to its modern meaning. Every etymology is sourced.

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From the phrasal verb take out, describing food taken out of the restaurant.

From Middle English tynkere, likely from tin plus an old suffix used for trades — the same pattern seen in "beekeeper."

From Old English tienfeald, formed from ten + -fold.

A straightforward compound of "bird" and "cage."

From German "Bauer" ("farmer"), a common German and Jewish surname; related to the English word "bower."

A shortened, informal version of "lunatic."

From Anglo-Norman warantie, a variant of Old French guarantie — a close relative of both "warrant" and "guarantee."

From Old French roialté, going back to Latin rēgālis, "royal" — the payment sense developed because royalty payments were originally rights granted by a king or the Crown.

From French Hélène, from Latin Helena, from Ancient Greek Ἑλένη (Helénē). Doublet of Elaine.

Shortened from Ephraim Williams, the soldier whose bequest founded Williams College.

A shortened, informal form of "vagina", also widely used as an Italian female given name in its own right.

Borrowed from French révision, from Latin revisio, "a seeing again".

Invented in 1963 for the BBC show Doctor Who, as an acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space."

From Middle English copweb — likely "cop" (an old word for spider) plus "web."

Built from telepathy plus the adjective ending -ic.

From the verb "teethe" plus "-ing".

An alteration of "tiny", first recorded around 1825, often used in a playful or childlike way.

From "technology" plus the adjective ending "-ical".

From Greek thyreoeidēs, "shield-shaped," describing the gland's shape.

A learned borrowing from Late Latin sphinctēr, from Ancient Greek σφιγκτήρ (sphinktḗr, "band, contractile muscle") — possibly related to "sphinx," meaning roughly "the strangler."

From Old English Dofras, from Latin Dubris, from Brythonic Dubras ("the waters"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewb- ("deep").

From Latin supplementum, from supplere ("to fill up, complete").

From Old French acertener, "to make certain," ultimately from Latin certus ("certain, sure") — the same root as "certain."

From Old French ignorant, from Latin ignorans, "not knowing."