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 Old English sunne, from a very old Germanic and Indo-European root shared by "sun" words across most European languages.

From Old French point, "dot, small amount," from Latin punctum, "a prick, small hole," from pungere, "to prick."

From Middle English bitte, bite, from Old English bita (“bit; fragment; morsel”) and bite (“a bite; cut”), from Proto-Germanic *bitô and *bitiz; both from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). More at bite. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian bit, Saterland Frisian Bit, Dutch bit, German Low German Beet, Biet, German Biss and Bissen, Danish bid, Swedish bit, Icelandic biti.

A compound of "chair" and "-man," dating to the head of a meeting who traditionally sat in the chief seat.

From Italian "ombrella" ("parasol"), from Late Latin "umbrella", influenced by "umbra" meaning "shade" or "shadow".

From the Greek prefix pseudo-, from pseudes, "false, lying."

Borrowed from German Mann, meaning "man."

From Old English beor, from a Proto-Germanic root, though some scholars trace a link to Vulgar Latin biber ("a drink"), from Latin bibere ("to drink").

From Old English mete, which originally meant "food" in general, not just animal flesh — the narrower sense developed over time.

From Old English fēaw ("few"), from a Germanic and ultimately Proto-Indo-European root meaning "small, few."

The country name reached English via Portuguese and Malay from a Chinese term meaning roughly "sun origin"; the lacquer sense comes from ornamental lacquerware first associated with East Asian craftsmanship.

From milli- ("one thousandth") plus second, following the same pattern as millimetre and milligram.

From Middle Dutch clocke, "bell" or "clock," ultimately from a Celtic word meaning "bell" — early clocks were valued for the bells that struck the hour. A doublet of "cloak."

From Latin centuria, from centum ("one hundred").

From Old French "second," from Latin "secundus" ("following, next"), related to "sequor" ("to follow").

From Old English Īras ("Irishmen"), from Old Norse Írar, ultimately from Old Irish Ériu ("Ireland").

Plural of "table," referring to the flat board and its two halves used in the game.

From de- + -crypt, ultimately from Ancient Greek kryptós, meaning "hidden."

From Old English ġēar, from a very old Germanic and Indo-European root meaning "year" or "spring" — a distant cousin of the words "hora" and "hour."

From Old French medecine, from Latin medicīna ("the healing art"), from medicus ("physician"). The sense referring to Indigenous ritual practice was later borrowed to translate similar concepts from Ojibwe and related languages.

From Old French lettre, from Latin littera, meaning both "letter of the alphabet" and, in the plural, "written message."

From Old English "ic," which traces back through Germanic languages to a very old Indo-European word for "I."

From Latin crūdus ("raw, uncooked"), the same root as "raw" itself.

An acronym of the Russian Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, meaning "Committee for State Security".