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 hoard plus the agent suffix -er, going back to Old English hordere, meaning a keeper of stores or treasure.

Borrowed directly from French cancan.

A straightforward compound of "money" and "maker," first used in Middle English for someone who literally minted coins.

From the fairy tale character Goldilocks, the golden-haired girl who breaks into the three bears' house and finds one bowl of porridge too hot, one too cold, and one "just right."

From thaw + -ing.

From disengage + -ed.

From practise + -ing (suffix forming gerund nouns, and present participles of verbs).

From falter plus the suffix -ing.

From "blend" plus the "-ing" ending.

From Middle English softenyng, built from soften plus -ing.

From Middle English flusshyng, flusshynge, equivalent to flush + -ing.

From Middle English gloriously, equivalent to glorious + -ly.

From splendid plus the adverb suffix -ly.

From "pay" (as in "paying," i.e. revenue-generating) plus "load" — coined in the early twentieth century for the profitable part of a cargo.

From French polytechnique, coined for the École polytechnique founded in Paris in 1794, from Greek polútechnos, "skilled in many arts."

From society + -al.

From Japanese 忍び (shinobi), related to 忍ぶ (shinobu, "to conceal oneself").

From Old English dæru ("injury, harm, loss"), tracing back to a very old Germanic root meaning damage — a distant relative of similar words in Old High German and Sanskrit.

A compound of end and game.

From "blatant" plus the adverb-forming "-ly."

From Yiddish pastrame, tracing back through Romanian pastramă to Turkish pastırma, "pressed meat" — the English "-i" ending likely came from the influence of "salami."

From on + screen.

From famous + the adverb suffix -ly.

Borrowed from French revue, literally "review" — a doublet of the English word "review", which it later replaced in this theatrical sense.