Etymology — The origins of English words

misuser

Origin

* from misuse + -er

mucker

Origin

By surface analysis, muck + -er. Compare Swedish mokare/mockare (“one who cleans dung”, agent noun) → rörmokare/rörmockare (“plumber”, literally “pipe mucker”). Compare the military sense to Finnish mokkeri (“private”, colloquial), to Swedish mocka (“to clean muck”); and Swedish mecka/meka (“to repair or improve (mechanical) equipment”), to meckaniker (“mechanic”); also Swedish mucka (“to complete military service”), from Tavringer Romani mucka (“to be released”). The military sense might also derive from a slur, a common practice in military lingo.

mauler

Origin

From maul + -er.

neosalvarsan

Origin

From neo- + salvarsan.

mcmahan

Origin

Variant of McMahon.

misfortunate

Origin

From misfortune + -ate (adjective-forming suffix) or mis- + fortunate.

misshapenness

Origin

From misshapen + -ness.

meretricious

Origin

From Latin meretrīcius, from meretrīx (“harlot, prostitute”), from mereō (“earn, deserve, merit”) (English merit) + -trīx (“(female agent)”) (English -trix).

mummyhood

Origin

From mummy + -hood.

menhir

Origin

PIE word *méǵh₂s Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂sder.? Proto-Celtic *maginos Proto-Brythonic *maɣɨnder. Breton maen Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Indo-European *seh₁-ró-s Proto-Celtic *sīros Proto-Brythonic *hirder. Breton hir Breton maen-hirbor. French menhirbor. English menhir Either borrowed from French menhir, or from its etymon Breton maen-hir, compound of maen (“stone”) + hir (“long”). Compare with Welsh maen hir, and Cornish men hir.

neonate

Origin

From New Latin neonātus (“newborn”).

nailor

Origin

An English occupational surname for a maker of nails.

milker

Origin

From Middle English milkere, equivalent to milk + -er.

mullered

Origin

From muller (“to destroy; to beat or thrash; to utterly defeat or outplay”) + -ed (suffix forming past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs). Muller is probably derived from Angloromani mul-, the preterite stem of mer- (“to die”) (compare mullered, mullo (“dead”, adjective); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to die; to disappear”)) + English -er (suffix forming frequentative verbs).

negentropy

Origin

From nega- + entropy. A blend of negative + entropy, coined by the French physicist Léon Brillouin (1889–1969). The term negative entropy was introduced by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) in his book What is Life? (1944, based on lectures delivered in February 1943).

mcfaddin

Origin

Variant of McFadden.

militaristic

Origin

From militarist + -ic or military + -istic.

multitudinous

Origin

Learned borrowing from Latin multitūdin- (the oblique stem of multitūdō (“great number (of people), multitude”)) + English -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, denoting the presence of a quality in any degree (typically an abundance)). Multitūdō is derived from multus (“many; much”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mel- (“to be late; to worry”)) + -tūdō (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition or state). By surface analysis, multitude + -in- (interfix used before Latinate suffixes appended to nouns ending with -itude or -tude) + -ous.

newel

Origin

Inherited from Middle English nowel, *newel, from Old French noel, from either Early Medieval Latin nōdellus (“buckle”, diminutive of nōdus "knot") or Late Latin nucālis (“nut-like”, derivative of nux "nut"). Doublet of noil and noyau.

nestle

Origin

From Middle English nestelen, nestlen, from Old English nistlan, nestlian, nistlian (“to make or build a nest”), from Proto-West Germanic *nistilōn (“to build or occupy a nest; nestle”), equivalent to nest + -le. Cognate with Middle Low German nëstelen (“to build a nest”), Dutch nestelen (“to nest, nestle”).

nerts

Origin

Alteration of nuts to avoid vulgar nuts (“testicles”)

neurode

Origin

Probably a blend of neuron and node.

mimer

Origin

From mime + -er.

methodic

Origin

From Ancient Greek μεθοδικός (methodikós, “going to work by rule, systematic, crafty”).