alfred tennyson | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

41 entries found.

masc. proper name, Old English Ælfræd, literally "elf-counsel," from ælf (see elf) + ræd "counsel" (see rede). Alfred the Great was king of the West Saxons 871-899. Related: Alfredian (1814).

sainthood (n.)

"state or condition of being a saint," 1540s, from saint (n.) + -hood. Saintship is attested from c. 1600; saintdom from 1842 (Tennyson).

nobelium (n.)

transuranic element, 1957, named for Alfred Nobel (q.v.). With metallic element ending -ium.

fledgling

also fledgeling, 1830, "untried" (adj.), in Tennyson; 1846 as a noun meaning "young bird" (one newly fledged); from fledge + diminutive suffix -ling. Of persons, from 1856.

Krupp (n.)

1883, in reference to guns made at the armaments works in Essen, Germany, founded by German metallurgist Alfred Krupp (1812-1887).

ley (n.)

"line of a prehistoric track; alignment of natural and artificial features," 1922 [Alfred Watkins], apparently a variant of lea. Popular topic in Britain in 1920s-30s and again 1960s-70s.

Third World (n.)

1963, from French tiers monde, formulated 1952 by French economic historian Alfred Sauvy (1898-1990) on model of the third estate (French tiers état) of Revolutionary France; his first world (The West) and second world (the Soviet bloc) never caught on.

forgetful (adj.)

late 14c., from forget + -ful. A curious formation. Used in the sense "causing forgetting" from 1550s, but almost exclusively in poetry (Milton, Tennyson, etc.). An older word in this sense was Middle English forgetel, from Old English forgitel "forgetful," from a formation similar to that in Dutch vergetel. Related: Forgetfully; forgetfulness.

Pangaea

"supercontinent of the late Paleozoic era," 1924, from Greek pan- "all" (see pan-) + gaia "earth" (see Gaia). First attested in German, 1920, in Alfred Wegener's "Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane" (but according to OED the word is not found in 1914 first edition).

Stanford-Binet

intelligence test, first published 1916 as a revision and extension of the Binet-Simon intelligence tests, from Stanford University (California, U.S.) + the name of French psychologist Alfred Binet, who devised the attempt at a scientific measurement of intelligence.

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