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 Anglo-Norman ancestrel, built on ancestre ("ancestor") plus the adjective ending -al.

From Latin rigidus (\"stiff\"), from rigeō (\"to be stiff\").

From Old French pité, itself from Latin pietas ("dutifulness, piety") — pity and piety are historical twins from the same Latin root.

From Middle English "ugly", borrowed from Old Norse "uggligr" meaning "dreadful, fearsome" — related to the word "ug", meaning dread. The sense softened over time from "frightening" to simply "unattractive".

Borrowed from French brillant, the present participle of briller ("to shine"), ultimately traced back to Latin beryllus ("beryl, gemstone").

From Old English togian, related to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to pull," shared with words like "tug" and "team."

Borrowed from Spanish flamenco, originally meaning "Fleming"/"Flemish" — the connection to the dance style is debated among etymologists.

From Middle English choys, blending an earlier noun with a word meaning "excellent" — ultimately related to Old English ċēosan, "to choose."

From French attique, ultimately from the Greek region Attica — the term originally described a decorative upper storey built in the classical Athenian architectural style.

From early Western spellings of Chinese 陽/阳 (yáng), originally meaning the sunlit side of a hill or building.

From an early romanization of Chinese yin, originally referring to the shaded side of a hill or building.

From Middle English ynneside, formed from in + side.

From Old French ancestre, from Latin antecessor, "one who goes before" — from ante ("before") + cedere ("to go").

Middle English · 1700

From Middle English fonne ("a fool" or "to make a fool of"); the modern sense "amusement" only emerged around the 1700s.

From Old English Scyttisc, built from Scot plus the adjective ending -ish; it is a close cousin of the words Scotch and Scot.

Borrowed from Malay gila.

From Middle English "dan"/"daun", borrowed via Anglo-Norman from Latin dominus, "lord" — the same root that gives us "don".

From Hindi बाबू (bābū), a term of respect that also came to label colonial-era clerks.

Old English · 1800

From Old English filmen, meaning "thin skin" or "membrane" — the sense of a "coating" came first, and by the late 1800s it extended to the chemical coating on photographic plates, then to movies themselves.

A shortened form of "babby", itself a dialect variant of "baby".

Of Dravidian origin, related to Tamil and Telugu words for the wedding cord.

A contraction of "get up" or "get thee up."

Shortened from chapman, an old word for a travelling trader or dealer.

Borrowed from French carte ("card, paper"), from Latin charta — a doublet of the English words "card" and "chart."