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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. This content is taken to ...
"speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word," from Proto-Germanic… See origin and meaning of word.
"ancestry, race," from Latin originem (nominative origo) "a rise, commencement,… See origin and meaning of origin.
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).
Etymology is the study of the origin of words and how the meaning of words has changed over the course of history.
The primary sense in Old English still was "away," but it shifted in Middle English with use of the word to translate Latin de, ex, and especially Old French de, which had come to be the substitute for the genitive case.
The modern meaning "recorded events of the past" is from late 15c., as is use of the word in reference to a branch of knowledge. The meaning "a historical play or drama" is from 1590s.
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).
"why, wherefore; indeed, surely, truly," from Proto-Germanic pronoun *hwat (source also… See origin and meaning of what.