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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Probably related to tafia (“a type of rum”).

From Ancient Greek misogynēs, from miseō ("I hate") + gynē ("woman").

Named after the country Sierra Leone, whose own name comes from Portuguese for "lion mountains."

From "lake" plus the agent suffix "-er".

From Old French enterrer, from Vulgar Latin interrare, "to put into the earth."

A shortened form of "hocus-pocus", the traditional magician's phrase used before a trick.

A shortened form pulled out of "zigzag."

A shortened form of the Kongo phrase "nzadi o nzere," meaning "the river that swallows all rivers," referring to the Congo River; adopted as the country's name under Mobutu's Authenticity Movement.

A back-formation from "zigzag" — people split the word in two and started using "zag" on its own.

The name was borrowed from a word for cassava and mistakenly applied to this unrelated plant after early botanists confused the two.

From Old English "geoc," from a very old Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to join" — the same root that gives us "yoga" and "jugular."

Likely imitative — the word simply mimics the sound itself, going back to a Middle English word for cheeping like a bird.

From Old English wā, an ancient cry of grief found across many Indo-European languages — related to Latin vae and Ancient Greek οὐαί, both also meaning "woe!"

From Middle English wispe, of uncertain deeper origin, related to old West Germanic words for a bundle of straw or grass.

From wine plus the informal suffix -o, which marks a person defined by that trait (compare "weirdo").

Shortened from "periwinkle," the name of the small edible sea snail.

From wing + the agent suffix -er.

From Middle English wile, related to Old English wīl ("trick") — a doublet of the word "guile."

From Old English wiht, "a thing" or "a creature" — the same root that also produced the word "wight"; over time it narrowed to mean the smallest conceivable amount of something.

From Old English hwettan, "to sharpen" or, figuratively, "to spur someone on" — the physical and mental senses have travelled together since Old English.

From Old English wenian ("to accustom, train"), related to the word "wont."

Formed from the verb waive plus the suffix -er, first recorded in the 1600s.

Borrowed directly from Arabic wādī, meaning "valley" or "riverbed".

From Italian volta, "a turn," a doublet of the English word "volte."