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The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms.
As "an account of the particular history of a word" from mid-15c. As practised by Socrates in the Cratylus, etymology involves a claim about the underlying semantic content of the name, what it really means or indicates.
word. (n.) Old English word "speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word," from Proto-Germanic *wurda- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian word, Dutch woord, Old High German, German wort, Old Norse orð, Gothic waurd), from PIE *were- (3) "speak, say" (see verb). The meaning "promise" was in Old English, as was the ...
Etymology is the study of the origin of words and how the meaning of words has changed over the course of history.
original. early 14c., "first in time, earliest," from Old French original "first" (13c.) and directly from Latin originalis, from originem (nominative origo) "beginning, source, birth," from oriri "to rise" (see origin). The first reference is to sin, synne original, "innate depravity of m.
Old English of, unstressed form of æf (prep., adv.) "away, away from," from Proto-Germanic *af (source also of Old Norse af, Old Frisian af, of "of," Dutch af "off, down," German ab "off, from, down"), from PIE root *apo- "off, away." Compare off (prep.).
The Medieval Latin word is said to have been first used by Johannes de Garlandia (John of Garland) as the title of a Latin vocabulary published c. 1220. Probably first English use in title of a book was in Sir Thomas Elyot's "Latin Dictionary" (1538). As an adjective, "of or pertaining to a dictionary," from 1630s.
The meaning "collection of words arranged according to sense" is attested from 1852 in Roget's title. Thesaurer is attested in Middle English for "treasurer" and thesaur "treasure" was in use 15c.-16c.; Elizabethan English had thesaurize "hoard as treasure." also from 1823.
blow-job. (n.) also blowjob, "act of fellatio," 1961, from blow + job (n.). Exactly which blow is meant is the subject of some debate; the word might have begun as a euphemism for suck (thus from blow (v.1)), or it might refer to the explosive climax of an orgasm (thus blow (v.2)).
The form is similar to Latin cunnus "female pudenda" (also, vulgarly, "a woman"), which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps literally "gash, slit" (from PIE *sker-"to cut") or "sheath" (Watkins, from PIE *(s)keu-"to conceal, hide").