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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The pornography sense comes from the US film rating "X," introduced in 1968 for adult content; posters exaggerated it to "XXX" to imply something even more extreme. The "kisses" sense is unrelated, from the letter X historically representing a kiss on letters.

From Old English gift ("giving, dowry") and Old Norse gipt, both from a Germanic root shared with "give." Interestingly, the same root produced the German word Gift, which now means "poison."

Spanish · 1500

Probably from a Utopian island of the Amazons named in a 16th-century Spanish novel.

From Ancient Greek mu, itself from a Phoenician letter meaning "water."

From German Stein, "stone" — likely a shortening of Steinkrug, "stone jug," describing the material the mug was originally made from.

A shortening of promenade.

From Old French prune, from Vulgar Latin *pruna, ultimately from Ancient Greek proumnon, "plum" — prune and plum are actually the same word, borrowed at different times.

A shortening of "mic", itself short for "microphone"; in radio spelling alphabets, "Mike" stands for the letter M.

From Old English aenes, an extension of aene ("one time") with a genitive -s ending, related to "one."

From Old English þriwa ("three times") plus an old adverb-forming ending — the same pattern that gave us "once" and "twice."

From Old English twīwa ("two times") with an old adverbial ending, related to the prefix twi- meaning "two."

From Old French respect, from Latin respectus, "a looking back, regard" — from re- ("back") plus specio ("to see"). A doublet of "respite".

From Ancient Greek kappa, the letter name. The internet slang sense is unrelated, taken from "Kappa," the name of a popular sarcasm emote on the streaming platform Twitch.

From French millimètre, from milli- ("one thousandth") plus metre.

From Greek paragraphos, from para- ("beside") + grapho ("to write") — originally a mark noting a new section of text.

From Late Latin asteriscus, "little star," from Greek asterískos, a diminutive of astḗr ("star").

Coined by the chemist Antoine Lavoisier from Latin carbo, "charcoal" or "coal."

From Ancient Greek khaos, meaning "vast chasm" or "void" — the formless emptiness that existed before creation in Greek myth.

Built from orthodontic (from Greek orthos, "straight," + odous, "tooth") plus the -ist suffix for a person who practices something.

From Old English feþer, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to fly" — related to Greek petomai ("to fly") and Latin penna ("feather").

From Old English flyht ("flight"), related to fleogan ("to fly"). The "running away" sense comes from the same root as "flee."

From Old English meolc, going back to a very old Germanic and Indo-European root meaning "to milk."

From Greek helios ("sun"), because the element was first detected in sunlight before it was found on Earth.

From Latin neglegentia, "carelessness," related to neglegere, "to disregard."