Etymology — The Origins of English Words

First attested in 1820. From biblio- + -phile (from Ancient Greek βιβλίον (biblíon, “paper, document, tablet”) + φίλος (phílos, “beloved”)), probably after French bibliophile.

bi- + -gamous

From black + top.

Borrowed from German Braunschweig.

From bird + -ling.

From bi- + -pod.

From boar + back, modelled on horseback.

Learned borrowing from Latin calamus (“reed, cane”). Doublet of culm, haulm, helm (Etymology 4, stalk), qalam, and shawm.

From blemish + -ment.

From Ancient Greek βραδύς (bradús, “slow”) + καρδία (kardía, “heart”), equivalent to brady- + -cardia.

From be- (“at, on, upon”) + tone. Compare German betonen.

Uncertain, first attested in the 1900s. Perhaps from dialectal bodewash (“dried buffalo dung”) or by Etymology 2, from bourgeois. Subsequently used as a minced oath variant of bullshit, though bullshit itself is only attested from the 1910s.

From blush + -er.

From Latin cadāverōsus; compare Middle English cadaverous (“gangrenous, mortified”).

From Middle English brust-bon, brestbon, from Old English brēostbān (“breastbone”), equivalent to breast + bone.

From canopy + -ed.

From carboniferous (“producing carbon”), from carbon + -i- + -ferous.

From biosphere + -ic.

Unknown; compare Old English bindele (“a binding, a tying”) from bindan (“to bind”), and bundle. Additionally, compare mister from master.

From book + marker.

From blue + jacket.

Borrowed from French canonnier, with the ending reshaped to English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with, concerned with, or engaged in specified activities). Canonnier is derived from Middle French cannonier, canonnier, from canon (“cannon”) (from cane (from Old French cane (“tube”), from Latin canna (“cane; reed; something resembling a cane”), from Ancient Greek κᾰ́ννᾰ (kắnnă, “giant reed (Arundo donax)”), from Akkadian 𒂵𒉡𒌑𒌝 (qanûm, “reed”)) + -on (augmentative suffix)) + -ier (suffix denoting a profession). By surface analysis, cannon + -eer.

From Latin biceps (“double-headed”).

Latin caesius (“bluish-grey”); probably akin to Latin caelum (“sky”); see celestial.