Etymology — The Origins of English Words

From bode + -ful.

From blithe + -some.

Apheretic form of Sabrina.

18th-century Great Britain. From a character in John Gay's 1714 poem The Shepherd's Week.

From be- + wreck. Compare Old English bewrecan (“to drive or bring to”). More at be-, wreck.

From Middle English birth-sted, equivalent to birth + stead (“place, location”).

From Late Middle English canonizen (“to declare as a saint; to appoint to an ecclesiastical office”), from Old French canonisier (modern French canoniser (“to canonize”)), or from its etymon Medieval Latin, Late Latin canōnizāre, the present active infinitive of Latin canōnizō (“to recognize as a saint, canonize; to declare as authoritative or official”), from Latin canōn (“measuring line; (figurative) precept, rule, canon; authorized catalogue”) + -izō (suffix forming verbs). The English word is analysable as canon (“general principle, rule; authoritative group of works; catalogue of saints canonized in the Roman Catholic Church”) + -ize.

From the Doric dialect of North East Scotland, from earlier browes, from Old French broez, nominative of broet (“stew, soup made from meat broth”) (French brouet) diminutive of breu, from Medieval Latin brodium, from Proto-Germanic *bruþą (“broth”). See broth.

Uncertain; possibly cognate with English bug, or derived from Welsh bwgwly (“to terrify”).

From butter + fingered (“having fingers (of the specified kind)”), an allusion to people tending to drop things because their hands are so slippery that they seem to be covered in butter.

From blue + -ness.

From blind + -er.

From better + -hood.

From Brooke + -ite, named in 1825 for English crystallographer Henry James Brooke.

Borrowed from translingual Bryophyta, from Ancient Greek βρύον (brúon, “moss”) + φυτόν (phutón, “plant”) ( + -phyte).

From Latin branchia, from Ancient Greek βράγχια (bránkhia, “gills”).

Borrowed from French bonbonne f, from Occitan boumbouno m [from boumbo + -ouno, ultimately from Latin bombus and -ōnem], made feminine in French under the influence of French bonne (unrelated), and with change of bomb- to bonb- under the influence of French bonbon (also unrelated). Although less common in French, the spelling bombonne more accurately reflects the Latin bomb- root.

Formed from the root of Latin camera (“room; chamber”), with the suffix -al, perhaps corresponding to a Late Latin, Medieval Latin cameralis.

From Middle English *bury dokke (attested as plural bury dokkis), equivalent to bur(ry) + dock.

From cable + -let.

From blow + pipe.

Inherited from Middle English *blyndehode, blyndehede. By surface analysis, blind + -hood.

From Middle English *blithenesse, from Old English blīþnes, from Proto-West Germanic *blīþinassī, equivalent to blithe + -ness. Cognate with West Frisian blidens (“blitheness, joy”), Old High German blīdnissa (“joy”).

From dialectal variant of Spanish canastillo (“small basket”), from Latin canistellum, diminutive of canistrum (“basket”).