Etymology — The Origins of English Words

From French candidature, equivalent to candidate + -ure.

Partial calque of Dutch burgemeester with master. Compare also boroughmaster.

From blemish + -less.

Apparently from Old French bousequin, variant of brousequin (compare modern French brodequin), probably from Middle Dutch broseken, of unknown origin.

Short for Camilla or Camille. Clippings + -y.

From camp (“an affected or exaggerated style”) + -ish.

Borrowed prior to 1931 from Yiddish באָבקעס (bobkes), plural of באָבקע (bobke, “goat or sheep dropping”), from באָב (bob, “bean”) + ־קע (-ke) calquing Polish bobek (“oval-shaped turd”), ultimately from Proto-Slavic *bobъ (“bean, fava bean”). Popularized by American Jewish writer Sam Denoff in mid-1960s The Dick Van Dyke Show.

From by- + play.

From body + suit.

From bumble + -er.

From Middle English brasen, from Old English brasian, bræsian (“to cover with brass”), from bræs (“brass”).

From bush + -er.

From Middle English betellen (“to tell about, calumniate”), from Old English betellan (“to speak about, answer, defend oneself against a charge or accusation”), equivalent to be- (“about, concerning”) + tell.

From brilliant + -ness.

From bunch + flower.

From brass + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning “having the quality of”).

From broad + sword.

From breed + -er. Cognate with West Frisian brieder (“one who breeds, breeder”), Dutch broeier (“brooder, vagrant”).

From brother + -ship. Piecewise doublet of friarship and palship.

Corruption of the Hindustani विलायती (vilāytī) / وِلایَتی (vilāyatī, “foreign”), which is related to Arabic ولاية (wilāyah, “state, province”), whence also, through Turkish, vilayet. Sir Henry Yule and Arthur C. Burnell explained in their Anglo-Indian dictionary, Hobson-Jobson, published in 1886, that the word was used in the names of several kinds of exotic foreign things, especially those that the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato, विलायती बैंगन (vilāytī baiṅgan, literally “foreign aubergine”), and especially to soda water, which was commonly called विलायती पानी (vilāytī pānī, literally “foreign water”). Blighty was the inevitable British soldier’s corruption of it. But it only came into common use as a term for Britain at the beginning of the First World War in France about 1915. It turns up in popular songs "There’s a ship that’s bound for Blighty", "We wish we were in Blighty", and "Take me back to dear old Blighty, put me on the train for London town", and in Wilfred Owen's poems, as well as many other places. The sense of a minor wound comes from attributive use of the noun, as in “a Blighty wound,” “a Blighty one,” 1916. In modern Australian usage, Ol

Probably from Spanish bola.

From Middle English brudlak, brudlac (“nuptuals”), from Old English brȳdlāc (“bridal, wedded condition, marriage ceremony”). By surface analysis, bride + -lock.

From calculate + -able.

PIE word *dwóh₁ From bi- (prefix meaning ‘two; both’) + -athlon (suffix meaning ‘contest’), modelled after pentathlon.