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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Past tense of become, from Old English becuman 'to come to, arrive, happen', from be- plus cuman 'to come'.

An initialism of blind carbon copy, from the carbon paper once used to make duplicate copies of typed letters.

An initialism of be back soon; the computing sense is an initialism of bulletin board system.

An initialism of BlackBerry Messenger.

An error for bear with me, in which bear carries the old sense 'to endure or put up with'.

From French balustrade, from Italian balaustro 'baluster', ultimately from Greek balaustion 'pomegranate flower', which the swelling shape of the posts resembles.

From the surname of the Basque couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, who founded the house.

From Old English nafogar, literally 'nave-borer', a tool for piercing a wheel hub. The initial n was lost when 'a nauger' was reanalysed as 'an auger'.

atomic mass unit

A descriptive compound: atomic, from Greek atomos 'indivisible', plus mass unit.

An initialism of all the best.

From Latin assidere 'to sit beside', via the sense of a judge's assistant who fixed the amount of a tax or fine.

An initialism of as fuck.

as soon as possible

A fixed phrase; its initialism ASAP is now a word in its own right.

From art plus the informal suffix -sy; chiefly North American, alongside the British form arty.

From Greek arachne 'spider' plus phobos 'fear'.

From Anglo-Norman and Old French apartenance, from Latin appertinere 'to belong to', from ad- 'to' plus pertinere 'to pertain'.

A playful alteration of anyhow, influenced by anyway.

A calque of German Antisemitismus, coined in the nineteenth century from anti- 'against' + Semitism; despite its form, it has only ever meant hostility towards Jews.

anthropomorphic

From Greek anthrōpos 'human being' + morphē 'form, shape'.

From Greek anabolē 'a throwing up, building up', from ana- 'up' + ballein 'to throw'.

From Old French amortir 'to deaden, extinguish', ultimately from Latin ad- 'to' + mors, mortem 'death'.

A blend of alphabetic and numeric, from Greek alphabētos and Latin numerus 'number'.

Formed from the Greek prefix a- 'without' + gender.

Possibly an acronym of a foreigner around Manila.