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 no big deal.

In the first sense, an abbreviation of Latin nota bene, 'note well'; in the second, an initialism of non-binary.

natural selection

Coined by British biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 in his work On the Origin of Species.

From Latin nascentem, the present participle of nasci, 'to be born'.

Pick-up basketball slang popularized (but not first coined) by Manute Bol, a basketball player of Sudanese origin playing with the Golden State Warriors, and subsequently adopted by teammates. Compare semantics with Russian оплошность (oplošnostʹ, “mistake, bad”), from о- (o-) + плох (plox, “bad”).

An initialism of most valuable player in the sporting sense, and of minimum viable product in the business sense.

From French moustache, from Italian mostaccio, ultimately from Greek mystax, meaning 'upper lip' or the hair on it.

From multi-, from Latin multus 'many', and facet, from French facette 'little face', the term for a cut surface on a gem.

From Latin mucus, meaning nasal mucus.

In the beauty sense, an initialism of makeup artist.

In the food sense, an initialism of monosodium glutamate; in the messaging sense, a written shortening of message.

A written contraction of mistress, once the ordinary courtesy title for a woman; the pronunciation 'missiz' developed separately from the spelling.

From Old French movement, from Latin movere 'to move', with the noun suffix -ment.

From Greek morphe 'form' and -logia 'study of'.

From Latin morbidus 'diseased', from morbus 'disease'.

Formed from mole, the chemical unit of amount, which comes from German Mol, a shortening of Molekulargewicht 'molecular weight'.

Latin, literally 'way of operating', from modus 'manner' and operandi, the gerund of operari 'to work'.

From Medieval Latin modalitas, from Latin modus, meaning 'measure' or 'manner'.

In the volume sense, an abbreviation of millilitre; in the computing sense, an initialism of machine learning.

From Greek mitos, meaning 'thread', with the suffix -osis, after the thread-like appearance of the chromosomes during division.

From Greek mitos 'thread' plus khondrion 'little granule', describing their appearance under early microscopes.

From mindful plus -ness. The modern psychological sense translates Pali sati, 'awareness, recollection', from Buddhist teaching.

From Middle English myddel fynger. By surface analysis, middle + finger.

From Greek metonymia 'a change of name', from meta 'change' plus onyma 'name'.