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 Latin capitalis ("of the head"), from caput ("head"). The financial sense grew out of medieval trade in "heads" of cattle — property was literally counted in animal heads.

Borrowed from French cadre, from Italian quadro ("square, framework"), from Latin quadrum — the original sense was a "frame" or organizational skeleton.

Borrowed directly from Spanish "burro," meaning donkey.

Borrowed from Swahili bwana ("master"), itself from an Arabic word for "our father."

Borrowed from Spanish gracias, meaning "thank you."

Old Irish · 1771

From Irish bean sí, literally "woman of the fairy mound," via Old Irish ben síde. The word entered English in 1771.

From gaff (an old word for "hook") + -er; the film-lighting sense grew from technicians who once adjusted flaps ("gaffs") on lighting tents.

Spanish · 1500

First recorded in the mid-1500s; likely imitative of chattering sounds, possibly related to "jabber," with the -ish ending as used in language names like "English" or "Spanish."

From an older word atwite meaning "to blame or reproach," which goes back to Old English ætwītan.

From Old English ūs, the dative/accusative form of "we," going back to a very old Indo-European root shared with Latin nōs and German uns.

From "pedant" (someone who shows off learning or fusses over rules) plus the adjective ending "-ic."

First recorded around 1756 meaning the special vocabulary of tramps or thieves; its deeper origin is uncertain, though it may come from a Scandinavian source related to words meaning "to sling" or "to fling."

From German Chromosom, built from Greek khrôma (\"colour\") + sôma (\"body\"), because the structures show up vividly when stained for viewing under a microscope.

From Old French jargon, originally meaning idle chatter or the twittering of birds, before narrowing to mean specialist or insider language.

From Latin vernaculus, "native, domestic," originally describing something belonging to home-born slaves — later broadened to mean anything native or local.

Borrowed from Italian graffiti, the plural of graffito, from graffire ("to scratch"), ultimately from Ancient Greek graphein ("to write").

From Old English locian ("to look, gaze"), of West Germanic origin with no certain relatives outside the Germanic languages.

From draw plus -ing.

From Old English dragan, "to drag or pull," from a Proto-Germanic root related to Latin trahere ("to pull, drag") — the same root behind "drag" and "draught."

From Late Latin oralis, from os, "mouth," plus the adjective ending -alis.

From Middle English syns, synnes, contraction of earlier sithens, sithence, from sithen (“after, since”) ( + -s, adverbial genitive suffix), from Old English sīþþan, from the phrase sīþ þǣm (“after/since that (time)”), from sīþ (“since, after”) + þǣm dative singular of þæt. Cognate with Dutch sinds (“since”), German seit (“since”), Danish siden (“since”), Icelandic síðan (“since”) Scots syne (“since”).

From Old English rǣdan, which originally meant "to advise" or "to interpret" before narrowing to mean "to interpret written text."

From Old English fram/from ("forward, from"), going back to a Proto-Germanic word meaning "forward, away".

From Old French piece, ultimately from a Gaulish Celtic word for a portion or share — related to modern Welsh peth ("thing").