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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From west + wood.

From French belle vue, meaning "beautiful view".

Borrowed from Hindi माथुर (māthur).

Spelling variant of Loven; see Lown.

From the Chinese surname 柯 (Kē).

Common Slavic surname, from Serbo-Croatian Petrović, Slovak and Slovene Petrovič, Czech Petrovič, all forms of Peter.

Borrowed from the Hungarian given name Gábor.

Borrowed from Italian and Sicilian Lisi.

A playful slang coinage referencing actor Patrick Swayze, who played a ghost in the 1990 film Ghost — "gone to the other side."

As a German, Scandinavian, and Dutch surname, from the noun for "monk".

Borrowed from Tamil.

Borrowed from Assamese দত্ত and Bengali দত্ত (dotto), from Sanskrit दत्त (datta, "given, granted").

From various romanizations of the Mandarin pronunciations of various Chinese names, including 應 /应 (Yīng or Yìng), 郢 (Yǐng), and 嬴 (Yíng).

From Arabic sulaymān, a doublet of the name Solomon.

Borrowed from Arabic كَبِير (kabīr, “big, large, great”). This surname is mostly found in Bangladesh.

From Old English rēad ("red") + lēah ("wood, woodland clearing").

From Old English sāwan ("to scatter seed"), from a very old Germanic root shared with "seed."

From Brown plus -s- plus -ville.

The brand and several places of the same name honor Pontiac, an 18th-century Odawa war chief.

From Middle English wimmen, from Old English wīfmenn (“women”), from wīf (“female”) + menn (“men, persons, human beings”), equivalent to wife + men. Spelling (with o) influenced by the singular; see woman for more.

From Arabic لَطِيف (laṭīf).

Borrowed from Japanese 田村 (Tamura).

Borrowed from Italian Girardi.

Initialisms (see definitions).