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The Online Etymology Dictionary or Etymonline, sometimes abbreviated as OED (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary, which the site often cites), is a free online dictionary that describes the origins of English words, written and compiled by Douglas R. Harper.
This is a list of English words inherited and derived directly from the Old English stage of the language. This list also includes neologisms formed from Old English roots and/or particles in later forms of English, and words borrowed into other languages (e.g. French, Anglo-French, etc.) then borrowed back into English (e.g. bateau, chiffon, gourmet, nordic, etc.).
The word originally referred to the game hand-i'-cap, in which forfeits were placed in a cap to equalize the game. [66] [67] Hiccough, an alternate spelling still encountered for hiccup, originates in an assumption that the second syllable was originally cough. The word is in fact onomatopoeic in origin.
But OED frowns on this, and there is no evidence of such a word in Celtic unless later words in Irish and Welsh, sometimes counted as borrowings from English, are original. [7] Unknown (OED Online) common beck: Agricultural implement with two hooks. Etymologised in the OED as from a 'Celtic root bacc-' (possibly via French). [8]
About 10,000 French and Norman loan words entered Middle English, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food. [20] See English language word origins and List of English words of French origin. Although English is a Germanic language, it has a deep connection to Romance languages. The roots of ...
As a historical dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary features entries in which the earliest ascertainable recorded sense of a word, whether current or obsolete, is presented first, and each additional sense is presented in historical order according to the date of its earliest ascertainable recorded use. [5]
Some English words can be written with diacritics; these are mostly loanwords, usually from French. [14] As vocabulary becomes naturalised, there is an increasing tendency to omit the accent marks, even in formal writing. For example, rôle and hôtel originally had accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accents are almost ...
For example, the Latin word candidus, which means ' white ', is the etymon of English candid. Relationships are often less transparent, however. Relationships are often less transparent, however. English place names such as Winchester , Gloucester , Tadcaster share different forms of a suffix that originated as the Latin castrum ' fort ' .