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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Formed from health plus the adjective suffix -y.

From manage plus the agent suffix -er, "one who manages."

From Old French manege ("horse training, horsemanship"), from Italian maneggiare ("to handle"), ultimately from Latin manus, "hand." The oldest sense was literally about handling horses; "being in charge of" and "coping with" are later extensions.

From Old English feoh ("cattle, property, money"), blended with Old French fief — both ultimately from a Germanic word for livestock, since animals were once a measure of wealth.

From Latin decipere, "to deceive," via Old French decepcion.

From Latin decipere, "to catch, ensnare, cheat" — from de- + capere, "to seize" (the same root gives us "capture" and "captive").

Old English · 1930

Invented by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s for his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; he later joked it might come from an imagined Old English word meaning "hole-dweller".

From Old English ofn, going back to a Proto-Germanic word for "oven," itself likely from an ancient root meaning "cooking pot."

Borrowed in the late 1600s from French glande, ultimately from Latin glandula, "little acorn" — glands were named for their shape.

From Middle English celing, related to an Old French word meaning "to conceal" — originally referring to the wall panelling as much as the overhead surface.

From Old English hrōf, an old Germanic word originally meaning both "roof" and, poetically, "the sky" — the covering over everything.

From Greek graphikos, "relating to drawing or writing," from graphein, "to write" or "scratch" — the same root behind "carve."

From Egyptian pr-aa, literally "great house" (i.e. the royal palace), via Hebrew, Greek, and Latin into English.

From Dutch duin via Middle Dutch, itself thought to trace back to a Celtic word for a fortified mound — the same root that gave English the word "down" (as in the South Downs).

From Old French mover, ultimately from Latin movēre, "to move." It largely replaced the older native English word "stir" in this sense.

From Latin tensio, from tendere ("to stretch"), borrowed into English via Middle French tension.

An onomatopoeic word imitating the animal sound itself.

From an earlier form "strope," from Latin "stroppus" ("strap"), ultimately from Ancient Greek "strophos" ("rope"), related to "strophe."

From French carotte, ultimately from Greek karoton — the same root as "carotene," the pigment that gives carrots (and some other vegetables) their orange colour.

From Norwegian "ski," from Old Norse "skíð," meaning "stick of wood" or "snowshoe."

From Old French large, from Latin larga, "abundant, plentiful."

From German Fuchs, meaning "fox" — related to English fox.

A compound of "flat" and "bed" (the load-bearing surface of a vehicle).

From Russian step, "flat grassy plain," borrowed into English via German or French.