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.

Browse etymology by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Recently added

From Old English wāclīċe (“weakly”), equivalent to weak + -ly (adjectival suffix); compare Old English wāclīċ (“weak; ignoble; mean”), and Old Norse veikligr (“weakly; sick”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *waikalīkaz (“weakly; weak”).

A shortening of "away" plus "-ward," originally meaning turned away from expected behaviour.

From Middle English waye syde — literally "way" plus "side."

A compound of life + style, coined to describe a characteristic way of living.

From Latin gluten, meaning "glue" — the same root that gives us the word "glue" itself.

A noun formed from the phrasal verb back up, meaning to support or reinforce from behind.

Russian · 1939

From dis- + information. The word took on its modern sense of deliberately planted false information in English around 1939, borrowed from the Russian dezinformatsiya used by Soviet intelligence.

From Old French sculpture, from Latin sculptura, from sculpere, "to carve or cut in stone."

From Persian hindū ("Indian"), ultimately from Sanskrit síndhu ("river," referring to the Indus).

From Old English wæteriġ, simply "water" plus the adjective ending "-y."

From Old English clǣnsian, "to make clean," built directly on the root of "clean."

From Old French purifier, from Latin pūrificāre, from pūrus ("pure") plus facere ("to make").

Formed from effective plus the adverb suffix "-ly."

Coined in French from "bureau" ("office") plus "-cratie" ("rule of"), by the 18th-century economist Vincent de Gournay.

From Old English bolster ("pillow"), from a Germanic root shared with German Polster and Swedish bolster.

From Latin vigilans ("staying awake"), the present participle of vigilare, from vigil ("awake").

Attested since the 1640s, from "air" plus "-borne" ("carried").

Probably either: * a clipping of scramble by apocope; or * from dialectal German schramm, the imperative singular form of schrammen (“to scratch, scrape”), from Late Middle High German schramm, schramme (“a graze, scratch”); further etymology unknown.

A straightforward compound of "pan" and "cake," describing a cake cooked flat in a frying pan — in use since at least the 15th century.

From Old French tané, the past participle of taner ("to tan hide into leather"), from tan, the bark used in the tanning process.

From Middle English stumpe, related to Middle Low German and Middle Dutch words for a cut-off remnant — ultimately from a Germanic root meaning "blunt" or "part cut off."

From "infra-" ("below") + "red," describing wavelengths just below visible red light.

Borrowed from Middle French révoquer, from Latin revocare, "to call back" — re- plus voco, "to call".

From Middle English geldyng, from Old Norse geldingr, related to gelda, "to castrate."