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The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.
As a modern branch of linguistic science treating of the origin and evolution of words, from 1640s. As "an account of the particular history of a word" from mid-15c. As practised by Socrates in the Cratylus, etymology involves a claim about the underlying semantic content of the name, what it really means or indicates.
word. (n.) Old English word "speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word," from Proto-Germanic *wurda- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian word, Dutch woord, Old High German, German wort, Old Norse orð, Gothic waurd), from PIE *were- (3) "speak, say" (see verb).
early 14c., "first in time, earliest," from Old French original "first" (13c.) and directly from Latin originalis, from originem (nominative origo) "beginning, source, birth," from oriri "to rise" (see origin). The first reference is to sin, synne original, "innate depravity of m.
Etymology is the study of the origin of words and how the meaning of words has changed over the course of history.
The Medieval Latin word is said to have been first used by Johannes de Garlandia (John of Garland) as the title of a Latin vocabulary published c. 1220. Probably first English use in title of a book was in Sir Thomas Elyot's "Latin Dictionary" (1538).
of. (prep.) Old English of, unstressed form of æf (prep., adv.) "away, away from," from Proto-Germanic *af (source also of Old Norse af, Old Frisian af, of "of," Dutch af "off, down," German ab "off, from, down"), from PIE root *apo- "off, away." Compare off (prep.).
Old English used 10 different words for "the," but did not distinguish "the" from "that." That survived for a time as a definite article before vowels (that one or that other).
Latin ambiguus "having double meaning, shifting, changeable, doubtful," an adjective derived from ambigere "to dispute about..., contend, debate," literally "to wander, go about, go around," figuratively "hesitate, waver, be in doubt," from ambi- "...about" (from PIE root *ambhi- "around") + agere "drive, lead, act" (from PIE root *ag- "to ...
"to cut, split." The notion is of "separation" from the body (compare Latin excrementum,… See origin and meaning of shit.