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 French acorder, ultimately from Latin roots meaning "to bring hearts together" (cor, "heart").

From Middle English birthe, borrowed from Old Norse burðr, ultimately from the same ancient root as the verb "to bear" — so birth literally means "the act of bearing (a child)".

From Latin praematurus, from prae- ("before") plus maturus ("ripe, mature"). First recorded in English around 1440.

From Old English seofon, from Proto-Germanic *sebun, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *septm, the same root behind Latin septem and Greek hepta.

From Latin politus, "made smooth," the past participle of polire, "to polish."

Old French · 1500

From Old French pome orenge, ultimately traced through Arabic naranj and Persian back to Sanskrit naranga, "orange tree." The color sense only developed in English around the 1500s, after the fruit's name was already in use.

From Old French dete, from Latin debitum, "what is owed." The silent "b" was added later by scholars imitating the Latin spelling — it was never pronounced in English.

From "Fanny," a pet form of the name Frances, which became slang in the 19th century.

From German Transvestitismus, coined in 1910 by Magnus Hirschfeld from Latin trans- ("across") and vestire ("to dress"); literally "cross-dresser."

From Middle English, formed by joining "what" and "ever" for emphasis.

From Latin lēns, "lentil" — glass lenses were named for their lentil-like shape.

From the company name Google, itself derived from "googol," a term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

A worn-down, contracted form of the word "even."

PIE word *h₁en Preposition and verb from Middle English in, from Old English in, from Proto-Germanic *in. Adverb, noun and adjective from Middle English in, from Old English inn and inne, from Proto-Germanic *innai. Sense 1/2 "in"/"into" are from the original PIE prefix, with locative/accusative case respectively. Sense 3/4 "qualification"/"means" are from the PIE metaphor of all infinitives coming from locatives.

From Middle English deyen, likely from Old Norse deyja, ultimately from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to die." It gradually replaced the older native English words for dying.

Adapted in the 19th century from the earlier syllable "si," changed so that no two notes of the scale began with the same letter.

Shortened from "caravan".

A clipped form of "heterosexual."

From the Latin name of the letter; the typographic sense (a unit half the width of an "em") dates to the late 18th century, by analogy with the letter M being wider than N.

The nobility particle comes from Latin "de" ("from, of"), inherited into French. The Cyrillic letter name is borrowed from Russian.

Borrowed from French libre, "free, at liberty," from Latin liber, "free."

From Old English spring ("wellspring") and spryng ("a jump"), both from Proto-Germanic roots; the season sense developed later from the idea of new growth "springing" up.

From Old English sumor, going back through Proto-Germanic to a very old Indo-European root for "summer" — related to similar-sounding words across most Germanic languages.

From Old French automne, ultimately from Latin autumnus.