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 French acidité, from Latin aciditas, "sourness."

From Old French peine, ultimately from Latin poena, "punishment" — the same root that gives us "penalty" and "penal."

* (noun): First attested in the 1590's. * From accuse (“blame”) + -ed

Middle English · 1300

From Middle English ayenes/agenes, a form of "again" with an adverbial ending; the final "t" was added around the 14th century by analogy with superlative endings like "-est."

From afore ("before") plus "mentioned."

Old English · 1900

From Middle English lamen/lemen, going back to Old English and Old Norse roots meaning "to make lame" — the "beat" sense came first, and "flee" grew out of underworld slang in the early 1900s.

From Latin palma, meaning both "palm of the hand" and "palm tree" — the tree was named for its leaves, which fan out like the fingers of an open hand.

From Old English Scotland, literally "land of the Scots."

Probably a reduplication of the baby-talk sound "ma," found in similar forms across many unrelated languages.

From Old English dūne, a shortened form of ofdūne, literally "off the hill" — combining of ("off") with dūn ("hill").

From eventual + -ly.

* (compliance): First attested around 1300. * (agreement): First attested in the early 14th century. * accord + -ance * From Middle English accordaunce, from Old French acordance (“agreeing, reconciliation, harmony”).

* First attested in the early 15th century. * (completes, perfects, equips): First attested around 1600. * accomplish + -ment * Borrowed from French accomplissement, from accomplir

From Old French reille and Old English regol, both going back to Latin regula, "a rule" or "straight bar" — the same root as "regular" and "rule."

From Old French train ("a drawing out, a delay"), from traïner ("to pull, to draw"), ultimately from Latin trahere, "to pull or drag" — the sense "to teach" developed later in Middle English by extension.

From Latin experientia, "a trial, proof, experience," from experiri ("to try, test"), the same root that gives us "expert."

From Middle French activité, from Latin activitas, ultimately from agere ("to do, act").

From active plus the verb-forming suffix -ate.

From Old French liberal, from Latin liberalis, "befitting a free person," from liber, "free." The political sense (someone favouring reform and personal liberty) only developed much later, in the 1800s.

From Old English wīf, an old Germanic word originally meaning simply "woman", which later narrowed in English to mean specifically a married woman.

From jelly + fish, describing an aquatic creature with a gelatinous, jelly-like body — even though jellyfish are not true fish at all.

Borrowed from New Latin gravitātiō, formed from gravitate + -ion.

Origin uncertain, possibly from an old Portuguese word for "fool" or from Dutch dodaars; first recorded in the 1600s.

The art-movement sense is often said to come from the French word for "hobby-horse," reportedly picked at random from a dictionary in 1916 precisely because it was silly and meant nothing serious; the baby-talk sense simply imitates an infant's first babbled sounds.