Etymology — The Origins of English Words

An acronym of assigned female at birth.

From Greek aēr 'air' + bios 'life', with the adjective ending -ic.

From Latin adhaerentem, present participle of adhaerere 'to stick to', from ad- 'to' + haerere 'to stick'.

An initialism, expanded differently in each field: attack damage carry, analog-to-digital converter, antibody-drug conjugate, aide-de-camp.

From Latin acutus 'sharpened, pointed', past participle of acuere 'to sharpen'.

From accrue, from Old French acreue 'increase', from Latin accrescere 'to grow towards', from ad- + crescere 'to grow'.

From Latin accessibilis, from accedere 'to approach', from ad- 'to' + cedere 'to go'.

Formed from Greek abros 'delicate, graceful', plus sexual.

From Old French abatre 'to beat down, put an end to', from Latin ad- 'to' + battuere 'to beat'.

From German Zeit "time" and Geist "spirit", literally "spirit of the time".

An initialism of you're welcome.

In the first sense a clipping of YouTube; in the second, a consonantal spelling of white.

From Chinese yin, the shaded northern side of a hill, and yang, its sunlit southern side.

A consonantal shortening of yeah, keeping only the first and last letters.

Popularized in March 2014 by the "yeet" dance which went viral on the now-defunct video sharing site Vine. The earliest known yeet dance is recorded in a YouTube video uploaded on February 3, 2014. However, examples of the interjection can be found much earlier, including a 1998 use by British presenter Jeremy Clarkson as well as a 2008 definition of "yeet yeet" on Urban Dictionary. As an expression used when throwing something, apparently coined by Vine user David Banna in a Vine uploaded on or before March 28, 2014 in which he throws a CD and yells out "YEET!", as well as a Vine uploaded April 4, 2014 of a high school student hurling an empty soda can and shouting "This bitch empty! YEET!" After the 2014 trend, the term faded into relative obscurity before resurging in 2018.

From Japanese yamete, the te-form of yameru "to stop", plus kudasai "please".

A repetition of the written symbols X for a kiss and O for a hug.

In the sign-off sense, from the written symbols X for a kiss and O for a hug; in the brandy sense, an abbreviation of extra old.

From Greek xenos "stranger, foreigner" and phobos "fear", formed on the model of other -phobia words.

An emoticon read sideways: X depicts eyes shut tight, D depicts a wide open mouth.

An initialism of what you mean, a clipped form of what do you mean.

An initialism of what you doing, a clipped form of what are you doing.

An initialism of where you at, a non-standard form of where are you.

An initialism of what's the word.