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 hold + -ing. The sense "holding company" is from Russian холдинг (xolding), a pseudo-anglicism derived from an ellipsis of holding company.

From tap plus the plural -s, originally referring to a drum signal for putting out lights in soldiers' quarters at night.

From trawl + -er.

From Old High German Godafrid ("peace of God"). A doublet of Geoffrey and Gottfried.

Variant of Geoffrey.

Old French · 1000

From Old French Geoffroi, ultimately of Germanic origin, brought to England by the Normans in the 11th century.

From Old English tyrning, built from turn plus the "-ing" ending that makes a noun out of an action.

A learned borrowing directly from Latin animus, meaning "mind, spirit, intention" — closely related to anima ("soul, breath").

From Old French Noel ("Christmas"), ultimately from Latin nātālis diēs ("birth day"), the same root behind "natal" and "Natal."

From Middle English scorchen, likely an alteration of an earlier form related to Old Norse skorpna, "to shrivel up."

From French vogue, "success" or "trend," originally meaning "the rowing or sailing of a boat" — the sense shifted from something moving forward smoothly to something popular and on the rise.

Clipping of Amabel, from Latin amābilis ("lovable").

Origin uncertain, first recorded for lumps of ore in 19th-century Australia and possibly linked to an English dialect word "nug", meaning a lump or block.

From Latin "transmittere," literally "to send across."

Borrowed from Japanese mondō, originally referring to a question-and-answer exchange in Zen Buddhism, though the English slang sense developed its own casual meaning of "huge" or "extreme."

From Ancient Greek galaktikos ("milky"), from gala ("milk") — the same root as "galaxy," since the Milky Way looks like a pale band of light.

From inter- ("between") plus galactic.

From Latin mergere, "to dip or plunge into" — the idea of one thing being absorbed into another.

From Middle English poorly, formed from poor + -ly.

From Old French tradicion, from Latin trāditiō ("a handing over"), from trādō, "to hand down" — the same root that gives us "traitor" (someone who hands their country over to an enemy).

From Old French distinguer, itself from Latin distinguere, "to separate by pricking or marking off" — built from dis- ("apart") and a root related to the English word stink (originally about a sharp, distinct smell).

From up + link.

From French hydrate, built from the Greek word hydor ("water") plus the chemical suffix "-ate."

Built from extra- ("beyond") + a shortened form of "interpolate," coined to describe reasoning beyond a known data range.