Etymology — The Origins of English Words

champaign

Origin

From Old French champaigne, from Late Latin campānia.

forcemeat

Origin

From force + meat, the former element a variant of obsolete farce (“to stuff”) influenced by force, itself from French farcir (“to stuff”).

concision

Origin

Borrowed from French concision, from Latin concisiō(n).

ductile

Origin

From Old French, from Latin ductilis (“easily led”).

equable

Origin

Learned borrowing from Latin aequābilis, from aequō (“make level”), from aequus (“even, level”).

assignation

Origin

From Middle English assignacioun, from Old French assignacion, from Latin assīgnātiō.

douchecanoe

Origin

Shitgibbon compound of douche + canoe.

earthenware

Origin

From earthen + -ware, first recorded appearance in 1673. Compare Dutch aardewerk (“earthenware”).

equivocate

Origin

From Late Middle English equivocaten, from Medieval Latin aequivocātus, perfect passive participle of aequivocō (“to be called by the same name”), from Late Latin aequivocus (“ambiguous, equivocal”). Compare French équivoque.

bombast

Origin

From Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”), from Late Latin bombax (“cotton”), a variant of bombyx (“silkworm”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silkworm”), possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk' (“cotton”), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.

fallal

Origin

Perhaps an alteration of falbala (“furbelow”), from French.

bufflehead

Origin

Compound of buffle (“buffalo”) + head, so called for its large head.

brotha

Origin

From a non-rhotic pronunciation of brother.

bechat

Origin

From be- (“over, about, concerning”) + chat.

embiggen

Origin

From em- + biggen or big + em- -en, possibly analogous to belittle. The morphology parallels that of enlarge (en- + large) or embolden (em- + bold + -en). The verb's first recorded use is in an 1884 edition of the British journal Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. by C. A. Ward (see quotation below). The word’s current popularity follows its deployment as an intentionally ungainly form by television writer Dan Greaney for The Simpsons episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” in 1996.

crotchety

Origin

From crotchet + -y, using crotchet in the 16th-century sense of a whim or fancy.

contravention

Origin

From Middle French contravention.

ebullition

Origin

From Old French ebullition, from Latin ēbullītiō, from ēbulliō (“to boil”).

chav

Origin

Origin uncertain; probably of Angloromani origin. Compare Romani chavi (“male child”) or ćhavo, shavo (“female child”), chal (“boy”), chavvy (“mate, friend”), compare Swedish tjej; possibly cognate with Portuguese chavalo, Spanish chaval, German Chabo, Russian чувак (čuvak), Hungarian csávó. See also charva. Derivations from council-housed and violent, Cheltenham average (and similar) are folk-etymological backronyms.

exultation

Origin

From Middle English exultacion, from Old French exultacion, from Latin exsultātiō, exsultātiōnem.

florescence

Origin

From Latin florēscō, from flōreō (“to bloom, flower”) + -ēscō, from flōs (“flower”), from Proto-Italic *flōs, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“flower, blossom”), from *bʰel- (“to bloom”), as if through the form flōrēscentia.

belowground

Origin

From below + ground.

aural

Origin

From Latin auralis, from auris (“ear”).

coagulation

Origin

Borrowed from Middle French coagulation, from Latin coagulatio, coagulationem. Morphologically coagulate + -ion.