Etymology — The Origins of English Words

Variant of boggard, recorded since 18th century. As a monster that feeds on fear, coined by British novelist J. K. Rowling in 1999 in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

From blithe + -less.

Apparently imitative, probably under influence of break + rattle.

From French calorifique or Latin calorificus, from calor + -i- + -ficus.

From bush + walking.

From blood (“red”) + nut (“head”).

From Latin bos (“cattle”) + cultura (“cultivation”); stem ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws which also gave Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs), and English cow.

From bronco + buster.

Yiddish בריווקע (brivke, “little letter”), a diminutive of Yiddish בריוו (briv), meaning a (postal) letter. Brifka is thus a "little letter". In turn derived from Old High German briaf, which is borrowed from Latin breve, a neuter form of Latin brevis (“short”). Cognates include Middle Dutch, Middle High German brief, and Dutch brief, Old Norse bréf, Old Saxon brēf (all of them borrowed from Latin) and English brief.

From Middle English blaundishen (“to flatter; to fawn; to be enticing or persuasive; to be favourable; of the sea: to become calm”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman blaundishen, from blandiss-, the extended stem of Middle French blandir + Middle English -ishen (suffix forming verbs). Blandir is derived from Latin blandīrī (“to fawn, flatter; to delude”), from blandus (“fawning, flattering, smooth, suave; persuasive; alluring, enticing, seductive; agreeable, pleasant”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- (“erroneous, false; bad, evil”)) + -iō (suffix forming causative verbs from adjectives). The English word is analysable as bland + -ish; compare bland (“agreeable, pleasant, suave; mild, soothing”).

From breech + cloth.

From bib (“drink heartily”) + -er (agent noun suffix); see bib (“clothing to prevent spills from mouth”). Bib is from Middle English bibben. First attested in the 1530s.

From Middle English callosite, collositee, calosite, from Anglo-Norman calosité (compare Old French chalosité), from Latin callōsitās, equivalent to callous + -ity.

From Medieval Latin borax (genitive boracis), itself via Arabic بَوْرَق (bawraq), from Persian بوره (bura).

Borrowed from French brillantine.

From butt + face. Compare butthead and butterface.

From bloat + -er, because they swell during preparation.

From bright + work.

From camel + back. ]

From Middle English betymes, from bi (“by”) + time + adverbial -s. By surface analysis, betime + -s (adverbial suffix). Compare also betides.

From bibi + -ji.

By surface analysis, an appellativization from Caprid(ae) minus -ae (a pattern that recurs with many -idae names); also by surface analysis, capr- + -id.

From bosk + -y.

From bread + basket.