van allen | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

37 entries found.

"front part of an army or other advancing group," c. 1600, shortening of vanguard.

"covered truck or wagon," 1829, shortening of caravan. Century Dictionary suggests this was perhaps regarded as *carry-van.

Microsoft

computer software company, founded 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

nekton

collective name for free-swimming aquatic creatures, 1893, from German nekton (van Heusen, 1890), from Greek nekton, neuter of nektos "swimming," from nekhein "to swim" (from PIE root *sna- "to swim"). Compare plankton.

vandyke (n.)

"short, pointed beard," 1894, from the style shown on portraits by Flemish painter Anton Van Dyck (1599-1641); earlier "a type of collar with a deep cut edge" (1755) also from a style depicted in his paintings.

care-worm (n.)

a word listed in 2nd print edition OED, whose editors found it once, in the 1598 edition of W. Phillip's translation of John Huyghen van Linschoten's account of his voyage to the East Indies, and marked it "? error for EAREWORM." But care-worm could be a useful word.

bioethics (n.)

also bio-ethics, coined 1970 by U.S. biochemist Van Rensselaer Potter II, who defined it as "Biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge forging a science that sets a system of medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival." From bio- + ethics.

Leyden

modern Leiden, city in Holland, said to be from Germanic *leitha- "canal." Leyden jar, phial used for accumulating and storing static electricity (1755), so called because it was first described (in 1746) by physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek (1692-1761) of Leyden.

Oklahoma

state in southwestern U.S., from Choctaw (Muskogean), literally "red people," from okla "nation, people" + homma "red." Coined by Choctaw scholar and Presbyterian minister Allen Wright (1826-1885), later principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, and first used in the Choctaw-Chickasaw treaty of April 28, 1866. Organized as a U.S. territory 1889; admitted as a state 1907. Related: Oklahoman.

suntan (v.)

also sun-tan, 1821, from sun (n.) + tan (v.). Related: Suntanned; suntanning. As a noun from 1888. Originally an indication of outdoor laboring; considered as an enhancement to beauty or proof of idleness from 1920s: F.L. Allen, chronicler of the decade ("Only Yesterday"), notes 1929 as the year that "on the sands of a thousand American beaches, girls pulled down the shoulder-straps of their bathing suits to acquire fashionably tanned backs ...."

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