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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A compound of fire and bird, referring to a bird's fiery red or orange colouring, or in folklore, its glowing plumage.

Borrowed from French Girard.

Pet form of name

From Irish póg, "kiss," ultimately from Latin pax, "peace" — the same root as the English word "peace."

Borrowed from the Norn language word gjo, itself from Old Norse gjá.

From Hindi chitthi ("letter, note"), picked up by English speakers in colonial India and applied to informal vouchers and receipts.

Named after Kersey, a village in Suffolk, England, where this style of woollen cloth was originally woven.

From Old English liccian, from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to lick," related to Latin lingo and Greek leíkhō. The violent sense ("to beat, defeat") is unique to English and its exact origin is unclear.

From the name of the classified-ads website Craigslist, itself named after its founder, Craig Newmark.

Traces back through Indo-Portuguese jagra to Sanskrit śarkarā ("candied sugar"), the same root that ultimately gave English the word sugar.

Borrowed from French Clarisse, from Italian Clarissa, from Medieval Latin Clarissa (“Poor Clare”); see there for more. Doublet of Clarissa and Clarisse.

A blend of "technology" and "color", originally a 1916 trademark tied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where two of the process's inventors met.

From Classical Nahuatl Moteuczoma, meaning roughly "he frowns like a lord."

From Hindi बीबी (bībī), ultimately from Classical Persian بیبی (bī-bī).

From obsolete German Ol- (in Ol-Verbindungen and Olgruppen, coined by Alfred Werner in 1907), from -ol (“-ol”).

From Old English āc ("oak") + denu ("valley").

A 20th-century variant of Kirsty, a form of Christina.

Named after the character Pepe the Frog, created by cartoonist Matt Furie, who picked the name "Pepe" because it echoed the word "pee-pee" and struck him as funny.

From pneumo- (\"air, lung\") + thorax (\"chest\").

A slang shortening of the brand name Rohypnol.

Possibly Dutch + -y. Compare double Dutch.

From perv + the informal adjective ending -y.

From Old English clōh, a word for a cleft or ravine, likely related to the idea of a cleft or gap in a hillside.

Named after the cigarette-lighter brand Ronson, whose 1940s advertising slogan promised it would light "every time" — a dark joke about how easily the tank ignited.