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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Ultimately from Ancient Greek; see Sophia.

From side + slip.

From Middle English slidery; equivalent to and remodelled as slither + -y.

From snare + -y.

From Middle English slyderen, slidren, from Old English sliderian (“to slip”), from Proto-West Germanic *slidrōn (“to slide”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleydʰ- (“to slip”). Cognate with Middle Dutch slideren (“to drag, train”), German schlittern (“to slip, slide”).

From side + light.

From snooze + -er.

Cognate with the above (form of sidle, from Middle English sidlyng, from which also directly sidling, above).

From snake + bit.

From Middle English sylveren, selverne, from Old English seolfren, from Proto-Germanic *silubrīnaz (“made of silver”); equivalent to silver + -(e)n. Cognate with Dutch zilveren (“silvern”), German silbern (“silvern”).

From Middle English smolderen (“to suffocate, stifle”), from Middle English smolder (“smoke, smoky vapour”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *smolōn (“to burn, glow, fume, smoulder”). Related to Proto-West Germanic *smallijan (> English smell).

From small + -ify.

From French sortilègeux.

Perhaps dialectally inherited from Middle English songere, from Old English sangere, from Proto-Germanic *sangwārijaz (“singer”), whence German Sänger, Dutch zanger etc. Equivalent to song + -er. Alternatively newly formed from these components.

From shuttle (from the back-and-forth sense of the word originating with loom weaving) + cock (from resemblance to a male bird's plume of tail feathers).

From Middle English slumbry, slombry, slomry, equivalent to slumber + -y. Cognate with Middle Dutch slumerich (“slumbery”).

From slicker + -ed.

Probably from French esquiver (“slink away”), from Middle French esquiver (“to escape”), from Spanish esquivar (“to avoid, reject, elude”), from esquivo (“contemptuous, loathsome”), itself from Old French eschiver, of East Germanic origin, from Gothic *𐍃𐌺𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍃 (*skiuhs, “afraid, barefaced”), from Proto-Germanic *skeuhaz (“afraid, frightened”). Cognate with English shy, eschew.

Borrowed from Italian simpatico or Spanish simpático (“nice, likeable”), ultimately from Ancient Greek σῠμπᾰ́θειᾰ (sŭmpắtheiă, “sympathy”, literally “suffering together”).

From soldier + -ly. Compare soldierlike.

Originally US, from slug (“to hit very hard”) + -fest.

From Old French significacion, from Latin significātiō.

From an alteration (perhaps due to giggle) of snigger, itself a variant of snicker.

From sopho- + -ont. First used in the 1966 works by Poul Anderson, coined by his wife Karen Anderson.