Etymology — The Origins of English Words

From snapper + head, possibly a reference to the appearance of snapper's heads frequently used as bait.

From Latin tumulus (“mound, hill”), from tumeō (“to swell”). Doublet of tombolo.

From spell + caster.

From united + -ness.

From tar + pall (“heavy canvas”) + -ing. The sailor sense reflects that sailors of centuries past often wore garments made of tarred cloth (for weatherproofing).

First attested in 1382: from the Old French sustentacion, from the Latin sustentātio, from sustentō; compare the Italian sostentazione, the Occitan sustentacion, the Portuguese sustentação, and the Spanish sustentación. Doublet of sustentatio.

From Ancient Greek συγχρονίζω (sunkhronízō), equivalent to syn- + chrono- + -ise.

From un- + flocked, from flock (“tufts of wool, lock of hair”).

From sympathise + -er.

From Medieval Latin thaumatūrgus, from Ancient Greek θαυματουργός (thaumatourgós), from θαύματο- (thaúmato-, “marvel”) + -ουργός (-ourgós, “worker, maker”). Doublet of thaumaturgus.

From sighted + -ness.

From -tropism (suffix meaning ‘growth towards; movement, turning’) (possibly based on geotropism and heliotropism), from Latin tropus + English -ism (suffix forming nouns of action, process, or result). Tropus is derived from Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos, “a turn; a manner, style, way; figure of speech, trope; etc.”), from τρέπω (trépō, “to turn; to divert; to rotate or change orientation”) (from Proto-Indo-European *trep- (“to turn”)) + -ος (-os, suffix forming nouns of result or abstract nouns of action). Sense 1 (“turning of an organism or part of an organism towards or away from a stimulus”) is modelled after German Tropismus.

] Borrowed from Latin ululātiō, from ululō (“to howl, shriek, yell”) (from a reduplicated Proto-Indo-European imitative root) + -ātiō (suffix forming nouns relating to some action or the result of an action) (from Proto-Indo-European *-tis (suffix forming abstract or action nouns from verb roots)). By surface analysis, ululate + -ion.

From skid + -er.

From un- + intermitted.

Latin sternutatio.

From Middle English strydynge, equivalent to stride + -ing.

Of unknown origin. Possibly a byform of totter.

From throttle + -er.

From Middle English unclenlī, onclenlich, from Old English unclǣnlīc, equivalent to un- + cleanly.

From un- + bless.

Borrowed from Afrikaans springbok, from Dutch springbok, from springen (“to jump, spring”) + bok (“buck, billy goat, antelope”).

From Middle English sliven, from Old English slīfan (“to cleave, split”), from Proto-West Germanic *slīban, from Proto-Germanic *slībaną (“to split”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to cut”).

From Latin stōicismus. By surface analysis, stoic + -ism. First attested in the 1620s.