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 the Serbo-Croatian name Sava.

Borrowed from Italian Fabrizio.

Borrowed from Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Russian Еле́на (Jeléna) and Pannonian Rusyn Єлена (Jelena), from Latin Helena, from Ancient Greek Ἑλένη (Helénē). Doublet of Helen and Ellen.

Borrowed from Spanish Emiliano. This surname is mostly found in Mexico.

Borrowed from Italian Calogero.

Borrowed from Italian Battista.

A transliteration of Sanskrit राहुल (rāhula).

From Latin Līvia, feminine form of Līvius, name of a Roman gens.

From Biblical Hebrew אוּרִיָּה ('ūriyyā, literally “God is my light”).

From Hebrew, meaning "daughter of the oath" or "daughter of abundance".

From Old English ead ("riches"), also a short form of compound names such as Edith.

From Lu + Anne.

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 湘 (Xiāng).

Borrowed from Tamil வள்ளி (vaḷḷi).

From Mandarin 琮 (cóng).

Transliteration of Hebrew יְהוּדָה (yehudá). Doublet of Judah and Judas.

Formed from "cis(gender)" plus "-y", playing on the older, unrelated word "sissy".

Formed from "spoon" plus the agent suffix "-er."

* As a Dutch and North Germanic surname, shortened from Lambrecht or Lempert. See Lambert. * As a Chinese surname, spelling variant of Lim.

From Thai ภูเก็ต, itself traced back to a Malay word for "hill," bukit.

Named after the Klondike River region in Yukon, Canada, site of a famous 1890s gold rush. The river's name comes from a local Indigenous word roughly meaning "hammerstone water."

Borrowed from Czech Tomek.

Ultimately from Old Norse hagi ("enclosure").

A spelling variant of Gardener.