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.

Browse etymology by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Recently added

From Old French vert ("green"), going back to Latin viridis — the same Latin root that gives English "verdant" and "viridian."

From Old English handfull, a compound of hand and full.

From Old French sauver, from Late Latin salvāre, "to save," related to Latin salvus, "safe."

From Portuguese baía ("bay").

From Old English æcer, "field where crops are grown," from a very old Germanic and Indo-European root meaning simply "field."

From Old French paiement, from "pay" plus the suffix "-ment."

From Old French sauf, from Latin salvus ("whole, unharmed") — the same root that gives us "salvage" and "save."

From Old French voiz, from Latin vox ("voice"), from a very old root meaning "to speak" — the same root gives us "vocal" and "advocate."

The monarchical sense is from Latin rex imperator / regina imperatrix; the distance sense comes from Korean 리 (ri), ultimately from Chinese 里 (lǐ).

Its exact origin is debated, but the most widely accepted story traces it to a 1839 Boston newspaper fad for joke misspellings — "oll korrect" for "all correct" — abbreviated to OK, which then got a huge popularity boost from Martin Van Buren's 1840 presidential campaign (his nickname was "Old Kinderhook").

From Middle English o, oo, from Old English ō, from Latin ō.

From Old English mē, the very old dative form of "I" that eventually took over from the original accusative form too — it goes all the way back to a Proto-Indo-European root shared by Latin mē, Greek emé, and Sanskrit mā.

From Old French bran, ultimately from a Gaulish word for "rotten" — an odd origin for something now marketed as a health food.

The "healthy/solid" and "strait of water" senses both trace to Old English words for "healthy" and a Germanic word for a narrow channel; the "noise" sense comes from a separate Latin root (sonus), making "sound" effectively three different words that merged in spelling.

Scottish Gaelic · 100

The mountain sense comes from Scottish Gaelic beinn, "mountain"; the "$100 bill" slang comes from Benjamin Franklin’s portrait on the note.

Formed from "begin" plus the agent suffix "-er" — someone who is (just) beginning.

Named after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor associated with the telephone.

From Old English beginnan, built from the prefix be- attached to an old Germanic verb root meaning "to open" or "to start."

Comes from Middle English beggen, a word of murky origin possibly connected to Old English roots meaning "to petition" or "to pray" — ultimately related to the verb "bid."

From Afrikaans sak ("bag"), the same root that gives English "sack."

From Middle English brethen, derived from breth ("breath").

From Old English ēage, tracing back to Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "to see" — related to "ogle" and, further back, to Latin oculus.

The verb comes from Old English teran, "to tear or rip," from an ancient root meaning to tear apart; the noun for a teardrop is actually a separate, unrelated word from Old English tear meaning a drop from the eye — the two just happen to be spelled alike.

From Old French crier, tracing back to Latin quiritare ("to shout"). The sense of shedding tears developed in English from the 13th century onward, gradually replacing the older word "weep".