English dictionary, thesaurus, translations & etymology

Etymology — The Origins of English Words

Where do words come from? Trace the origin and history of any English word, from its Latin, Greek or Old English roots through to its modern meaning. Every etymology is sourced.

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An initialism of motherfucker.

From the name of Franz Anton Mesmer, the eighteenth-century German physician whose theory of 'animal magnetism' gave rise to the practice later called hypnotism. He practised for years in Vienna, which is why he is often loosely called Austrian.

From Greek mēniskos 'crescent', a diminutive of mēnē 'moon'.

From Latin mendicare 'to beg', from mendicus 'beggar'.

Latin, literally 'remember that you must die', from memento 'remember' and mori 'to die'.

Popularized by the British author Israel Zangwill in his play The Melting Pot (1908).

From Latin mellitus 'sweetened with honey', from mel 'honey'.

An initialism, expanded differently in each field.

From Old French mandé, from Latin mandatum 'commandment', the first word of the Latin text of Christ's instruction to his disciples read at the Thursday foot-washing ceremony.

Masturbate comes from Latin masturbari, of uncertain formation; the traditional analysis links it to manus, hand, though this is not settled. The variant masterbate is not a separate word but a spelling influenced by the familiar English word master.

From Spanish mañana, meaning both morning and tomorrow, from Latin mane, in the morning.

Spell comes from Old English spell, meaning a story, saying or message. The magical sense grew from the idea of words spoken with power. The unrelated verb spell, 'to name the letters of a word', came separately from Old French espeller.

From Italian madrigale, probably from Late Latin matricalis, meaning of the womb or mother and hence in the mother tongue, that is, sung in the vernacular rather than in Latin.

low self-esteem

Esteem comes via Old French estimer from Latin aestimare, to value or appraise, so self-esteem is literally the value you place on yourself.

low-hanging fruit

A metaphor from harvesting: the fruit within arm's reach is picked first because it needs no ladder.

From the phrasal verb log out, itself from the practice of recording arrivals and departures in a log.

A compound of load, meaning the demand on a supply system, and shedding, meaning getting rid of part of it.

Lo is an old interjection meaning look, from Old English la, and behold is the verb meaning to look at. The pair is a doubled command to look, preserved as a set phrase long after lo dropped out of ordinary speech.

An initialism, expanded differently in each sense: like my status, learning management system, or least mean squares.

An initialism of love my life.

An initialism of love you lots.

From life + changing.

As a company name, LG comes from Lucky-Goldstar, the merged name of the Korean firms Lucky and Goldstar, which the group adopted in shortened form. As a size abbreviation, it is simply a clipping of large.

From libra, the Roman unit of weight and the word for a balance or pair of scales. The s was added in English to mark the plural, which is why the abbreviation has no letters in common with pound.