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 Sanskrit हेरम्ब (heramba, “buffalo”).

From French imploration, from Latin implorationem.

From handicraft + -s- + -man.

From Ancient Greek ἁλτῆρες (haltêres, “weights held in the hand to give an impetus in leaping”). Note that in the original Greek, there seems to have been no singular for ἁλτῆρες (haltêres), and some authorities maintain that halteres is a plurale tantum, but in English entomological usage, haltere sometimes appears as a back-formation. Sometimes the singular halter is used instead, but this may lead to confusion with other, unrelated meanings of halter.

From hurt (“blue spot”) + -y.

From Middle English hom-comyng, home komyng, home-cumyng, home-commynge, equivalent to home + coming. Probably an alteration of earlier Middle English hom-come, homkome, hame-come, ham-cume, from Old English hāmcyme (“homecoming; return”).

From hair + net. Compare Dutch haarnetje, German Haarnetz, Danish hårnet, Swedish hårnät.

Internationalism. From gyneco- + -mastia.

From the Latin icterus, from the Ancient Greek ἴκτερος (íkteros, “jaundice”).

From idiocy + -ity.

From Middle English hallow (“pursue, urge on”), from Old French haloer, which is imitative.

From Middle English historial, from Middle French historial (French historial) and its etymon Latin historiālis. By surface analysis, history + -al. Piecewise doublet of storial.

Univerbation of hold + all.

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 姑蘇 /姑苏 (Gūsū).

From heathen + -ism, coined in the 17th century in place of the then-obsolete heathendom. First attested in Francis Bacon's Of the advancement of learning (1605), II. xiv. §9: "The heresy of the Anthropomorphites … and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the gods to be in human shape" (OED).

From a Middle English diminutive of the given names Isabel and Hilbert.

Borrowed from French hussard, from Hungarian huszár (“cavalryman”), from Serbo-Croatian gusar (“corsair”), from Byzantine Greek χωσάριος, χονσάριος (khōsários, khonsários) or from Italian corsaro (“corsair”), from Medieval Latin cursārius (“pirate”), from Latin cursus (“running”), from currō (“run”). Doublet of corsair and courser.

Deverbal from hold off.

From Yiddish גענדזל (gendzl, “gosling”), from Middle High German gensel, diminutive of gans (“goose”).

From hydro- + forming.

From Middle French importuner and its etymon Medieval Latin importūnor (“to make oneself troublesome”), from Latin importūnus (“unfit, troublesome”), originally "having no harbor".

From the late 19th c., from Latin grānum (“grain, seed or small kernel”). Doublet of corn, grain, gram, and grao.

From green + brier.