Online Etymology Dictionary

abase: late 14c., abaishen, from O.Fr. abaissier "diminish, make lower in value or status," from V.L. *ad bassiare "bring lower," from L.L. bassus "thick, fat, low;" from the same source as base (adj.) and altered in Eng. by influence of it, which made it an exception to the rule that O.Fr. verbs with stem -iss- enter English as -ish.
abeyance: 1520s, from Anglo-Fr. abeiance "suspension," also "expectation (especially in a lawsuit)," from O.Fr. abeance "aspiration, desire," noun of condition of abeer "aspire after, gape" from à "at" + ba(y)er "be open," from L. *batare "to yawn, gape" (see abash). Originally in O.Fr. a legal term, "condition of a person in expectation or hope of receiving property;" it turned around in Eng. law to mean "condition of property temporarily without an owner" (1660). Root baer is also the source of English bay (2) "recessed space," as in "bay window."
absinthe: alcoholic liqueur distilled from wine mixed with wormwood, 1842, from Fr. absinthe, "essence of wormwood," from Mod.L. (Linnaeus) name for the plant (Artemisia Absinthium), from L. absinthum, from Gk. apsinthion, perhaps from Persian (cf. Pers. aspand, of the same meaning). The plant so called in English from 1610s.
absolutely: 1530s, "in a manner detached from other things," from absolute + -ly. Meaning "completely, to the utmost degree" emerged by mid-16c. As a colloquial emphatic in American English, it is attested from 1892.
Acadian: 1705, from Acadia, Latinized form of Acadie, Fr. name of Nova Scotia, probably from Archadia, the name given to the region by Verrazano in 1520s, from Gk. Arkadia, emblematic in pastoral poetry of a place of rural peace (see Arcadian); the name may have been suggested to Europeans by the native Micmac (Algonquian) word akadie "fertile land." The Acadians, expelled by the English in 1755, settled in large numbers in Louisiana (see Cajun, which is a corruption of Acadian).
back (n.): O.E. bæc "back, backwards, behind," from P.Gmc. *bakam (cf. O.S., M.Du. bak, O.Fris. bek), with no known connections outside Germanic. The cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense in other modern Gmc. languages by words akin to Modern English ridge (cf. Dan. ryg, Ger. Rücken). Many I.E. languages show signs of once having distinguished the horizontal back of an animal (or a mountain range) from the upright back of a human. In other cases, a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to "spine" (It. schiena, Rus. spina) or "shoulder, shoulder blade" (Sp. espalda, Pol. plecy).
bad: c.1200, a mystery word with no apparent relatives in other languages.* Possibly from O.E. derogatory term bæddel and its dim. bædling "effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast," probably related to bædan "to defile." Originally "defective, inferior;" sense of "evil, morally depraved" is first recorded c.1300. A rare word before 1400, and evil was more common in this sense until c.1700. Comparable words in the other I.E. languages tend to have grown from descriptions of specific qualities, such as "ugly," "defective," "weak," "faithless," "impudent," "crooked," "filthy" (e.g. Gk. kakos, probably from the word for "excrement;" Rus. plochoj, related to O.C.S. plachu "wavering, timid;" Pers. gast, O.Pers. gasta-, related to gand "stench;" Ger. schlecht, originally "level, straight, smooth," whence "simple, ordinary," then "bad"). Comparative and superlative forms badder, baddest were common 14c.-18c. and used as recently as Defoe (but not by Shakespeare), but yielded to comp. worse and superl. worst (which had belonged to evil and ill). In U.S. place names, sometimes translating native terms meaning "supernaturally dangerous." Ironic use as a word of approval is said to be at least since 1890s orally, originally in Black Eng., emerging in print 1928 in a jazz context. It might have emerged from the ambivalence of expressions like bad nigger, used as a term of reproach by whites, but among blacks sometimes representing one who stood up to injustice, but in the U.S. West bad man also had a certain ambivalence:
"These are the men who do most of the killing in frontier communities, yet it is a noteworthy fact that the men who are killed generally deserve their fate." [Farmer & Henley]
*Farsi has bad in more or less the same sense as the English word, but this is regarded by linguists as a coincidence. The forms of the words diverge as they are traced back in time (Farsi bad comes from M.Pers. vat), and such accidental convergences exist across many languages, given the vast number of words in each and the limited range of sounds humans can make to signify them. Among other coincidental matches with English are Korean mani "many," Chinese pei "pay," Nahuatl (Aztecan) huel "well," Maya hol "hole."
bagpipe: late 14c., from bag + pipe; originally a favorite instrument in England as well as the Celtic lands, but by 1912 English army officers' slang for it was agony bags.
baldric: c.1300, "belt worn over the shoulder," from O.Fr. baldre (Mod.Fr. baudrier "shoulder-belt"), which is probably from L. balteus "belt," said by Varro to be of Etruscan origin. The English word perhaps influenced by M.H.G. balderich (which is itself from the Old French).
bandit: 1590s, from It. bandito (pl. banditi) "outlaw," pp. of bandire "proscribe, banish," from V.L. *bannire "to proclaim, proscribe," from P.Gmc. *bann (see ban). *Bannire (or its Frankish cognate *bannjan) in O.Fr. became banir-, which, with lengthened stem, became English banish.
bandolier: 1570s, "shoulder belt (for a wallet)," from Fr. bandouiliere (16c.), from It. bandoliera or Sp. bandolera, from dim. of banda "a scarf, sash," a Gmc. loan-word related to Goth. bandwa (see band (2)). In some cases, directly from Spanish to English as bandoleer. Meaning "ammunition belt for a musket" is from 1590s; hence bandolero "highwayman, robber" (1832), from Spanish, lit. "man who wears a bandoleer."
banjo: 1764, Amer.Eng., usually described as of African origin, probably akin to Bantu mbanza, an instrument resembling a banjo. The word has been influenced by colloquial pronunciation of bandore (1560s in English), a 16c. stringed instrument like a lute and an ancestor (musically and linguistically) of mandolin; from Port. bandurra, from L. pandura, from Gk. pandoura "three-stringed instrument." The origin and influence might be the reverse of what is here described.
crapulous: 1530s, "sick from too much drinking," from L. crapula, from Gk. kraipale "hangover, drunken headache, nausea from debauching." The Romans used it for drunkenness itself. English has used it in both senses.
crawl: c.1200, crewlen, from a Scand. source, perhaps O.N. krafla "to claw (one's way)." If there was an O.E. *craflian, it has not been recorded. Swimming sense is from 1903, the stroke developed by Frederick Cavill, well-known English swimmer who emigrated to Australia and modified the standard stroke of the day after observing South Seas islanders. So called because the swimmer's motion in the water resembles crawling.
credit: 1520s, from L. creditum "a loan, thing entrusted to another," from pp. of credere "to trust, entrust, believe." The commercial sense was the original one in English (creditor is mid-15c.). Meaning "honor, acknowledgment of merit," is from c.1600. Academic sense of "point for completing a course of study" is 1904. Movie/broadcasting sense is 1914. Related: Creditable (1520s); creditability (1886). Credit rating is from 1958; credit union is 1881, Amer.Eng.
Creek: Indian tribe or confederation, 1725, named for creek, the geographical feature, and abbreviated from Ochese Creek Indians, from the stream in Ga. where English first encountered them. Native name is Muskogee, a word of uncertain origin.
criminal: early 15c. (adj.), from Fr. criminel (11c.), from L. criminalis, from L. crimen (gen. criminis); see crime, preserving the Latin -n-. As a noun, from 1620s. Criminal law (or criminal justice) distinguished from civil in English at least since late 15c.
crocodile: 1560s, restored spelling of M.E. cocodrille (c.1300), from M.L. cocodrillus, from L. crocodilus, from Gk. krokodilos, word applied by Herodotus to the crocodile of the Nile, apparently due to its basking habits, from kroke "pebbles" + drilos "worm." The crocodile tears story was in English from at least c.1400.
crow (v.): O.E. crawian "make a loud noise like a crow;" sense of "exult in triumph" is 1522, perhaps in part because the English crow is a carrion-eater.
crypto-: combining element meaning "secret" or "hidden," used in forming English words since at least 1760, from Gk. kryptos "hidden, concealed, secret" (the Gk. comb. form was krypho-). Crypto-fascist is attested from 1937; crypto-communist from 1946.
cum: (v. and n.) seems to be a modern (by 1973) variant of the sexual sense of come that originated in pornographic writing, perhaps first in the noun sense. This "experience sexual orgasm" slang meaning of come (perhaps originally come off) is attested from 1650, in "Walking In A Meadowe Greene," in a folio of "loose songs" collected by Bishop Percy.
They lay soe close together, they made me much to wonder;
I knew not which was wether, until I saw her under.
Then off he came, and blusht for shame soe soon that he had endit;
Yet still she lies, and to him cryes, "one more and none can mend it."
As a noun meaning "semen or other product of orgasm" it is on record from the 1920s. The sexual cum seems to have no connection with L. cum, the preposition meaning "with, together with," which is occasionally used in English in local names of combined parishes or benifices (e.g. Chorlton-cum-Hardy), in popular Latin phrases (e.g. cum laude), or as a combining word to indicate a dual nature or function (e.g. slumber party-cum-bloodbath).
cupidity: mid-15c., from Anglo-Fr. cupidite, from M.Fr. cupidité, from L. cupiditas "passionate desire," from cupidus "eager, passionate," from cupere "to desire" (perhaps cognate with Skt. kupyati "bubbles up, becomes agitated," O.Slav. kypeti "to boil," Lith. kupeti "to boil over"). Despite the erotic sense of the Latin word, in English cupidity originally, and still especially, means "desire for wealth."
curriculum: 1824, modern coinage from L. curriculum "a running, course, career," from currere (see current). Used in English as a Latin word since 1630s at Scottish universities.
curt: mid-14c., from L. curtus "(cut) short, shortened," from PIE base *(s)ker- "to cut" (see short). Sense of "rude" is first recorded 1831. The L. word was adopted early into most Gmc. languages (cf. Icelandic korta, Ger. kurz, etc.) and drove out the native words based on P.Gmc. *skurt-, but English retains short.
czar: 1555, from Rus. tsar, from Old Slavic tsesari, from Gothic kaisar, from Gk. kaisar, from L. Caesar. First adopted by Russian emperor Ivan IV, 1547.
The spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii, 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual Ger. form is now zar; French adopted tsar during the 19th c. This also became frequent in English towards the end of that century, having been adopted by the Times newspaper as the most suitable English spelling. [OED]
The Gmc. form of the word also is the source of Finnish keisari, Estonian keisar. The transferred sense of "person with dictatorial powers" is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng., initially in ref. to President Andrew Johnson. The fem. czarina is 1717, from It. czarina, from Ger. Zarin, fem. of Zar "czar." The Rus. fem. is tsaritsa. His son is tsarevitch, his daughter is tsarevna.
cabal: 1610s, from Fr. cabal "intrigue, society," originally "mystical interpretation of the Old Testament," from M.L. cabbala (see cabbala). Popularized in English 1673 as an acronym for five intriguing ministers of Charles II (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale).
Cajun: 1868, Cagian, dialectic pronunciation of Acadian, from Acadia, former French colony in what is now Canadian Maritimes. Its Fr. setters were dispersed and exiled by the English and thousands made their way to New Orleans in the period 1764-1788.
cap: O.E. cæppe "hood, head-covering," from L.L. cappa "a cape, hooded cloak," possibly shortened from capitulare "headdress," from L. caput "head" (see head). Meaning "women's head covering" is early 13c. in English; extended to men late 14c. Of cap-like coverings on the ends of anything (e.g. hub-cap) from mid-15c. Meaning "contraceptive device" is first recorded 1916. "Cap-shaped piece of copper lined with gunpowder and used to ignite a gun" is c.1826; extended to paper version used in toy pistols, 1872. The L.L. word apparently originally meant "a woman's head-covering," but the sense transferred to "hood of a cloak," then to "cloak" itself, though the various senses co-existed. O.E. took in two forms of the L.L. word, one meaning "head-covering," the other "ecclesiastical dress" (see cape (1)). In most Romance languages, a dim. of L.L. cappa has become the usual word for "head-covering" (cf. Fr. chapeau).
danger: early 13c., "power of a lord or master, jurisdiction," from Anglo-Fr. daunger, O.Fr. dangier "power to harm, mastery," alteration (due to assoc. with damnum) of dongier, from V.L. *dominarium "power of a lord," from L. dominus "lord, master" (see domain). Modern sense of "risk, peril" (from being in the control of someone or something else) evolved first in French and was in English late 14c. Replaced O.E. pleoh; in early M.E. this sense is found in peril.
dastard: mid-15c., "one who is lazy or dull;" an English formation on a French model, probably from *dast, "dazed," pp. of dasen "to daze" + (see daze) + deprecatory suffix -ard. Meaning "one who shirks from danger" is late 15c.
day: O.E. dæg, from P.Gmc. *dagaz, from PIE *dhegh-. Not considered to be related to L. dies (see diurnal), but rather to Skt. dah "to burn," Lith. dagas "hot season," O.Prus. dagis "summer." Meaning originally, in English, "the daylight hours," expanded to mean "the 24-hour period" in late Anglo-Saxon times. Day off first recorded 1883; day-tripper first recorded 1897. The days in nowadays, etc. is a relic of the O.E. and M.E. use of the adverbial genitive.
debauch: 1590s, from M.Fr. debaucher "entice from work or duty," from O.Fr. desbaucher "to lead astray," supposedly lit. "to trim (wood) to make a beam" (from bauch "beam," from Frankish balk; from the same Gmc. source that yielded English balk, q.v.). A sense of "shaving" something away, perhaps, but the root is also said to be a word meaning "workshop," which gets toward the notion of "to lure someone off the job;" either way the sense evolution is unclear.
debtor: early 13c., dettur, dettour, from O.Fr. detour, from L. debitorem (nom. debitor), from debere; see debt. The -b- was restored in later O.Fr., and in English c.1560-c.1660. The KJV has detter three times, debter three times, debtor twice and debtour once.
decade: mid-15c., "ten parts" (of anything; originally in ref. to the books of Livy), from M.Fr. decade, from L.L. decadem (nom. decas), from Gk. dekas (acc. dekada) "group of ten." Meaning "ten years" is 1590s in English.
decimation: 1540s, from L.L. decimationem, from L. decimare "the removal or destruction of one-tenth," from decem "ten" (see ten). Killing one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a common punishment in classical times. Earliest sense in English was of a tithe.
deck (n.): mid-15c., probably aphetic of M.L.G. verdeck, a nautical word, from ver- "fore" + decken "to cover, put under roof," from P.Gmc. *thackjam (related to thatch), from PIE *(s)tog-/*(s)teg- "cover" (see stegosaurus). Sense extended early in English from "covering" to "platform of a ship." "Pack of cards" is 1590s, perhaps because they were stacked like decks of a ship. The verb sense of "knock down" is first recorded c.1953, probably from notion of laying someone out on the deck. Deck chair (1884) so called because they were used on ocean liners. Tape deck (1949) is in ref. to the flat surface of old reel-to-reel tape recorders.
def: "excellent," first recorded 1979 in Black English, perhaps a shortened form of definite (see define), or from a Jamaican variant of death.
defendant: c.1400, in the legal sense, from Fr. défendant, prp. of défendre (see defend). General sense of "defender" is from 1530s; earliest use in English was as a prp. meaning "defending" (eary 14c.).
earring: O.E. earhring, from ear + hring (see ring (n.)). Now including any sort of ornament in the ear; the pendants were originally ear-drops (1720).
"The two groups which had formerly a near monopoly on male earrings were Gypsies and sailors. Both has the usual traditions about eyesight [see ear (1)], but it was also said that sailors' earrings would save them from drowning, while others argued that should a sailor be drowned and washed up on some foreign shore, his gold earrings would pay for a proper Christian burial." ["Dictionary of English Folklore"]
Easter Island: so called because it was discovered by Du. navigator Jakob Roggeveen on April 2, 1722, which was Easter Monday. It had been earlier visited by English pirate Edward Davis (1695), but he neglected to name it. The native Polynesian name is Mata-kite-ran "Eyes that Watch the Stars."
Ebonics: "African-American vernacular English," 1975, as title of a book by R.L. Williams, a blend of ebony and phonics.
Ecclesiastes: c.1300, name given to one of the O.T. books, traditionally ascribed to Solomon, from Gk. ekklesiastes (see ecclesiastic), to render Heb. qoheleth "one who addresses an assembly," from qahal "assembly." The title is technically the designation of the speaker, but that word throughout is usually rendered into English as "The Preacher."
eclat: 1670s, "showy brilliance," from Fr. éclat "splinter, fragment" (12c.), also "flash of brilliance," from eclater "burst out, splinter," from O.Fr. esclater, of uncertain origin, perhaps from a W.Gmc. word related to slit or to O.H.G. sleizen "tear to pieces; to split, cleave." Extended sense of "conspicuous success" is first recorded in English in 1741.
edification: late 14c., in religious use, "building up of the soul," from L. aedificationem, from aedificare (see edifice). Religious use is as translation of Gk. oikodome in I Cor. xiv. Meaning "mental improvement" is 1650s. Literal sense of "building" is rare in English.
facility: early 15c., from M.Fr. facilité, from L. facilitatem, from facilis "easy" (see facile). Its sense in English moved from "genteelness" to "opportunity" (1510s), to "aptitude, ease" (1530s). Meaning "place for doing something," which makes the word so beloved of journalists and fuzzy writers, first recorded 1872.
faggot (2): "male homosexual," 1914, Amer.Eng. slang (shortened form fag is from 1921), probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1591), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (cf. baggage). It was used in this sense in 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others. It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual," lit. "little bird." It also may have roots in Brit. public school slang fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This was also used as a verb.
"He [the prefect] used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him." ["Boy's Own Paper," 1889]
Other obsolete senses of faggot were "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817). The oft-heard statement that male homosexuals were called faggots in reference to their being burned at the stake is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use.
farthing: O.E. feorðung "quarter of a penny," a derivative of feorða "fourth" (from feower "four") + -ing "fractional part." Used in biblical translation of L. quadrans "quarter of a denarius;" the English coin (of silver until 17c., later of copper or bronze), was first minted under Edward I and abolished 1971.
"I shall geat a fart of a dead man as soone As a farthyng of him." [Heywood, 1562]
fascist: 1921, from It. partito nazionale fascista, the anti-communist political movement organized 1919 under Benito Mussolini (1883-1945); from It. fascio "group, association," lit. "bundle." Like fascism, originally used in English in its Italian form, as an Italian word. [Fowler: "Whether this full anglicization of the words is worth while cannot be decided till we know whether the things are to be temporary or permanent in England" -- probably an addition to the 1930 reprint, retained in 1944 U.S. edition.] Fasci "groups of men organized for political purposes" had been a feature of Sicily since c.1895; the 20c. sense probably influenced by the Roman fasces (q.v.) which became the party symbol.
fascism: 1922, originally used in English 1920 in its Italian form (see fascist). Applied to similar groups in Germany from 1923; applied to everyone since the rise of the Internet.
"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004]
February: 1373, from L. februarius mensis "month of purification," from februa "purifications" (plural of februum), of unknown origin, said to be a Sabine word. The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. In Britain, replaced O.E. solmonað "mud month." English first (c.1200) borrowed it from O.Fr. Feverier, which yielded feoverel before a respelling to conform to Latin.