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Online Etymology Dictionary. The Online Etymology Dictionary or Etymonline, sometimes abbreviated as OED (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary, which the site often cites), is a free online dictionary that describes the origins of English words, written and compiled by Douglas R. Harper. [ 1]
Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, [ 1] analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation[ 2] – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. [ 3][ 4][ 5] The form or the meaning of an archaic ...
Some Greek words were borrowed into Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. English often received these words from French. Some have remained very close to the Greek original, e.g., lamp (Latin lampas; Greek λαμπάς ). In others, the phonetic and orthographic form has changed considerably.
Etymological dictionaries are the product of research in historical linguistics. For many words in any language, the etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply unknown. In such cases, depending on the space available, an etymological dictionary will present various suggestions and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and provide ...
v. t. e. Etymology ( / ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi /, ET-im-OL-ə-jee[ 1]) is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of a word's semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes. [ 2][ 3] It is a subfield of historical linguistics, philology, and semiotics, and draws upon comparative semantics, morphology ...
The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language is a non-fiction book by English writer Mark Forsyth published in 2011. The book presents the surprising origin of everyday words used in English, with each definition being thematically linked to the next to provide a flowing narrative unlike reference books on etymology.
Forms nouns that denote a person who 'feeds on' the first element or part of the word Greek φαγιστής (phagistḗs) eater; see -phagia: Lotophagi-phagy: Forms nouns that denotes 'feeding on' the first element or part of the word Greek φαγία (phagia) eating; see -phagia: hematophagy: phall-phallus: Greek φαλλός (phallós ...
yan, tan, tethera etc. And variants. Most common in northern England, and ultimately from Brittonic *oinā, *deŭai, *tisrīs, etc., though heavily corrupted over time. Whether this is a legitimate Brittonic survival or a later borrowing from Welsh and Cornish remains open to scholarly debate.