Etymologie, Étymologie, Etymology
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Wörterverzeichnisse, Vocabulaires, Lists of words
allwords - Dictionary, Language Guide, Foreign Language and Etymology
Links for Word Lovers!
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AllWords.com was first considered in July of 1998, while we were building our first site, "allmath.com". We launched AllWords.com in January 1998 and we were immediately recognized by Yahoo! as "cool site" in the dictionary section of their guide. Since then we’ve strived to provide a simple, straightforward place to look up words and learn more about language sites across the web. Today we serve nearly 3/4 million visitors each month and hope that this blog and our soon to launch, AllGuides.com community will add to those numbers and help us all learn a bit more about the written and spoken word.
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Martha Barnette is author of "Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies" and "A Garden of Words".
musanim - Words of unknown origin - Word List - Wort-Liste
(E?)(L?) http://www.musanim.com/mam/unknown.html
Where do words come from? Most words are variations or combinations of words we knew already. This makes them easy to recognize and remember (and makes it easy to figure out where they came from). Some words created from scratch are coined by writers, which aids their popularization (and likewise makes it easier to determine the etymology). But most words of unknown origin have managed to make it into our vocabulary without either of these advantages.
What kind of word can make it against such odds? As you'll see in the list below, many have the advantage of onomatopoeia. But more than that, these are words that you love to know, love to hear, love to say.
I've given the dates of these words -- some from the Oxford English Dictionary, and some from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (which is where you go if you click the "definition" button); these two sources don't always agree. Some of the dates are obvious, for example, that moola, pizzazz, snazzy, jazz and tizzy are all from the early 20th century.
But there are some surprises. Who'd've guessed that things were nifty as early as 1868? Or that nobody had zits before 1966? Or that you could have taken a brief jaunt as long ago as 1570?
Or that people were nincompoops back in 1676? Actually, I can kind of believe that one ... some things never change ...
---Stephen Malinowski
(E?)(L?) http://www.nausetnewcomers.org/JustFor%20Fun/origin_of_words.htm
Here are some new Phrase Origins. How many do you know!
FEATHER IN YOUR CAP | CALLED ON THE CARPET | KING OF THE HILL | ABOVE BOARD | THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL | BARBECUE | PORT SIDE | CURFEW | BLURB | BOONDOCKS | BOONDOGGLE | BOOZE | BRASS TACKS | BROTHEL | BUCK | BULLS AND BEARS | BUNK | BY AND LARGE | CHARLEY HORSE | COTTON-PICKING | DOLLAR | DOPE | DAGO | DRAG RACE | DUNCE | EAVESDROP | Field Day | Five-By-Five | April Fools | GLITCH | FORTHNIGHT | Fore | acre | G.I. | Goody Two-Shoes
O
oreilly - On Interesting Words
(E?)(L?) http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/05/on_interesting.html
...
But music isn't the only interest that a lot of top nerds have: I think a lot of us are word nerds too.
I blogged earlier about "feague". Glenn Vanderburg recognized Mrs Byrne's and came back with one of his favourites:
"groak", which is the definition I remember word-for-word: "to stand watching someone eat, in the hopes they will ask you to join them."
I know Damian and Tom are classics nuts, as capable of emitting Latin as English. Damian even ported "Perl" to Latin. My favourite Tim O'Reilly story involves the day, many years ago, the dumb terminals got stuck on the Greek character set. Tim was the only one not to throw up his hands in disgust. He was quite happy putting his classics degree to good use by editing a computer book in "vi" with every letter transliterated into the Greek character set.
...
"feck" (FEK) n.
We often use negative words, quite common ones, without stopping to think that they are based on positive words that are uncommon and unfamiliar. Everyday examples are words like "impeccable", "untoward", "ruthless", "uncouth", and "disgruntled". We almost never give a thought to the positive terms in the senses that form the basis of the familiar negatives: "peccable" ("liable to error"), "toward" ("propitious"), "ruthful" ("compassionate"). So it is with "feckless", meaning "ineffective", "incompetent", "feeble", "helpless".
It must be obvious that there would be no such word unless there were also the word "feck", and there is such a word, as unfamiliar or obscure as it may be. "Feck", a mainly Scottish term that is also heard in the north of England, has a number of meanings, including "efficacy", "efficiency", and by extension, "energy", "vigor". It is deemed to be an aphetic form of "effect" ("aphetic" being the adjective from "aphesis", the linguistic phenomenon of the loss of an unstressed initial vowel or syllable). "Feck" gives rise to the adjective "feckful", meaning "vigorous", "efficient", "powerful".
In Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words at Present Used in the Mountainous District of the West Riding of Yorkshire (1811), "feckful" is defined as "strong and brawny". Hence our word "feckless"; and it all goes back to "feck". This is a different term from the slang "feck" (origin unknown) used by James Joyce in the sense of "swipe" or "pinch". In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) he describes persons who "... fecked cash out of the rector's room," and in Ulysses (1922) he writes of "fecking matches from counters." Nothing to do with the "feck" we've been discussing.
A word about "aphesis" (AF uh sis) and "aphetic" (uh FET ik):
"Aphesis" comes from the Greek, meaning "letting go", based on the verb "aphienai" ("to set free"), built of the preposition "ap-", a variant of "apo-" ("away") plus "hienai" ("to send"); cf. "aph(a)eresis" in my 1000 Most Challenging Words.
And from The Meaning of Liff:
"DOBWALLS" (pl.n.): The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.
"GLEMENUILT" (n.): The kind of guilt which you'd completely forgotten about which comes roaring back on discovering an old letter in a cupboard.
"NAUGATUCK" (n.): A plastic sachet containing shampoo, polyfilla, etc., which is impossible to open except by biting off the corners.
As you might have guessed, there's no etymology in "Meaning of Liff" because they've taken all those things we needed names for (like the baked-on dishwasher nastiness) and applied them to placenames (which, after all, were just sitting around not doing much).
...
P
phrontistery - English Word Lists and Language Resources
(E?)(L?) http://www.phrontistery.info/
"phrontistery" FRON-tis-te-ri, n a thinking-place [Gr "phrontisterion" from "phrontistes" a "thinker", from "phroneein" "to think"; applied by Aristophanes to the school of Socrates
(griech. "phronein" = "denken", "empfinden")
Since 1996, I have compiled word lists on various topics in order to spread the joy of the English language. If you're looking for an online dictionary, a word list on a given topic, or the definitions to rare and unusual words, the Phrontistery is for you. Here, you will find my 14000-word dictionary of obscure and rare words, the International House of Logorrhea, as well as many topical word lists and other English language resources. I'm not affiliated with any dictionary company, nor do I have any professional training in lexicology or etymology. I'm just a man with an endless love of unusual words - the rarer, the better.
...
Since 1996, I have compiled word lists on various topics in order to spread the joy of the English language. If you're looking for an online dictionary, a word list on a given topic, or the definitions to rare and unusual words, the Phrontistery is for you. Here, you will find my 15,500-word dictionary of obscure and rare words, the International House of Logorrhea, as well as many glossaries, word lists, and other English language and etymology resources.
...
International House of Logorrhea: dictionary and word list, rare words briefly defined
Newly added words in the IHL
Statistics on the words in the IHL
Compendium of Lost Words: 400 ultra-rare words previously unknown on the Internet
What is a Lost Word?
Compendium FAQ
Dedication: Thomas Blount (1618-1679)
A Loquacious Location of Lipograms - concerning writings omitting a letter of the alphabet
Origins of 'Lipogram'
Lipogram Links
Lipogrammatic Works of Fiction
Lipogram Submissions
Word Finding Tips - how to find a word you're looking for quickly and easily
Numbers and Numerical Prefixes - a discussion of numerical prefixes in English
2 and 3-Letter Scrabble Words - complete American and international lists
Linguistic Disquisitions - essays and rants relating to English words and language use
Forthright's Favourite Words - 50 of my favourite unusual words described in detail
English Language Resources and Links - other sites of interest to word-lovers
Sciences and Studies
Forms and Shapes
Carriages and Chariots
Divination and Fortune-Telling
Fabric and Cloth
Forms of Government
Grammatical Cases
Philosophical 'Isms'
Colour Terms
Bearing and Carrying Terms
Adjectives of Relation
Ecclesiastical Terms
Feeding and Eating
Three-Letter Rare Words
Killers and Killing
Contour Lines
Forms of Worship
Causation and Formation
Fighting and Combat
Latin Adverbs and Prepositions
Names for Names
Scientific Instruments
Manias and Obsessions
Nautical Terms
Units of Measurement
Dance Styles
Love and Attraction
Forthright's Forsoothery
Words of Wisdom
Pretenders and Dabblers
Styles of Speech
Phobias
New Glossary Ideas
Reference Shelf
Fiction and Non-Fiction
Numeration Books
Philms of the Phrontistery
Numerical Notation Bibliography
Numeration Links
The Ingenious Internet
Blank Page
Archives
princeton - Wordnet - Lexical Database for the English Language - Wordnet reference system
(E?)(L?) http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
Cognitive Science Laboratory Princeton University
WordNet® is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.
WordNet was developed by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University under the direction of Professor George A. Miller (Principal Investigator).
About WordNet | Use WordNet online | Download | Frequently Asked Questions | Related projects | WordNet documentation | WordNet statistics | Publications | License and commercial use | Contact, Report
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=59505424
BY GEORGE H. MCKNIGHT, PH. D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK : : 1923 : : LONDON
Contributors: George H. McKnight - author. Publisher: D. Appleton. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1923.
449 Seiten online.
Zu jedem Kapitel gibt es kleine Appetithäppchen.
Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.
Unter "This Week's FREE Books - Click below to read the entire book" findet man jede Woche ein Werk, zum kostenlosen Zugriff.
Click on a chapter to start reading.
-Title Page
-Preface
-Contents
-Chapter I: Standard English
-Chapter II: Dialect
-Chapter III: American English
-Chapter IV: Slang
-Chapter V: Technical Words
-Chapter VI: The Native Element in the English Vocabulary
-Chapter VII: Borrowed Teutonic Elements
-Chapter VIII: Classical Element
-Chapter IX: The French Element
-Chapter X: Varied Sources
-Chapter XI: Blending of the Various Elements
-Chapter XII: New Creations and Compounds
-Chapter XIII: Folk-Etymology
-Chapter XIV: Some Figures of Syntax
-Chapter XV: Tropes
-Chapter XVI: Figures of Similarity
-Chapter XVII: Figures of Contiguity
-Chapter XVIII: Generalization and Specialization
-Chapter XIX: Euphemism and Hyperbole
-Chapter XX: Degeneration and Elevation
-Chapter XXI: Words and ArchÆology
-Chapter XXII: Words and Culture History
-Chapter XXIII: Words and Romance
-Chapter XXIV: Place-Names
-Chapter XXV: Personal Names
-Chapter XVII: Choice of Words
-Chapter XXVII: Words Past and Present
-Word Index
-Subject Index
questia - The Wonder of Words
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=16234663
An Introduction to Language for Everyman
by ISAAC GOLDBERG, Ph.D.
D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY INCORPORATED NEW YORK 1938 LONDON
Contributors: Isaac Goldberg - author. Publisher: D. Appleton & Company. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1938.
485 Seiten online.
Zu jedem Kapitel gibt es kleine Appetithäppchen.
Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.
Unter "This Week's FREE Books - Click below to read the entire book" findet man jede Woche ein Werk, zum kostenlosen Zugriff.
Click on a chapter to start reading.
-Title Page
-Introduction
-Contents
-Foreword
-The Wonder of Words
-Chapter II: The Infancy of Language
-Chapter III: Sound Becomes Sense
-Chapter IV: The "Gesture" and the "Love" Theories
-Chapter V: Imagery and Metaphor
-Chapter VI: The Word as Magic
-Chapter VII: "A Local Habitation and a Name"
-Chapter VIII: Child and Woman in Language
-Chapter IX: How Sounds Are Made
-Chapter X: How Sounds Change -- and Perhaps Why
-Chapter XI: "Philologers. . ."
-Chapter XII: Janus Words
-Chapter XIII: How Meanings Change
-Chapter XIV: Word-History, or Etymology
-Chapter XV: What Are We Talking About? or Applied Semantics
-Chapter XVI: What is Grammar?
-Chapter XVII: Some Problems of Style
-Chapter XVIII: Purism
-Chapter XIX: Languages, Races, and Cultures
-Chapter XX: From Speech to Writing
-Chapter XXI: Forward from Babel
-Chapter XXII: To-Morrow
-Instead of a Bibliography
-Subject Index
-Word Index
questia - Unusual Words and How They Came About
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/
(E?)(L?) http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=8948096
By EDWIN RADFORD
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY New York
Contributors: Edwin Radford - author. Publisher: Philosophical Library. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1946. Page Number: *.
318 Seiten online. - Allerdings sind zu allen Wörtern Hinweise zur Herkunft zu finden.
Zu jedem Kapitel gibt es kleine Appetithäppchen.
Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.
Unter "This Week's FREE Books - Click below to read the entire book" findet man jede Woche ein Werk, zum kostenlosen Zugriff.
Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.
Unter "This Week's FREE Books - Click below to read the entire book" findet man jede Woche ein Werk, zum kostenlosen Zugriff.
One of my many fun ventures has been to see if I could find certain non-standard words that I remember knowing as a child. I was not raised on anything but standard English (the only English my parents, neighbors and grandparents knew). Yet for some reason I took for granted that certain words were standard when in fact they were not, and despite the fact I had not heard anyone use them. As I got older, I went looking for where those words came from. Even the Oxford Dictionary didn't have most of them. I still haven't found about a third of them, but the others proved to be related to various Scandinavian, Lowland-Scot, East Anglian, Yorkshire and Lowland-Germanic languages or dialects. (My suspicion is that so are the others, but I haven't found them yet.) And I still have no idea where I got them from.
While I was out looking, I gathered some other words that sounded great, had a rich heritage, or had a special unique meaning. This includes words with certain letters or combinations. Such as
'qu-', (with origins)
'kn-', 'gn-' (with origins)
'tw-' (with origins)
S + consonant, and (with origins)
'-imp', (with origins)
A few of these are commonly understood but rarely used; most are rarely understood. Feel free to use them; none are my own inventions. (That would defeat my original childhood purpose.) A larger battery of words are also available for you to look through :
A through O (with origins)
P through Z (with origins)
a proto-Germanic wordlist (quite preliminary)
S
T
takeourword (tak)
Take Our Word for It - Word List - Wort-Liste