Apr 7, 2025 · 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.

Often words of a specific book or author, as opposed to a dictionary, which aims to be more comprehensive. The meaning "range of words in the language of a person or group" is …

The mathematical radical sign, placed before any quantity to denote that its root is to be extracted, is from 1680s; the sign itself is a modification of the letter -r-.

The English word is attested from 1610s as "to deliberately terminate" anything (intransitive), but especially a pregnancy in a human or animal. Intransitive use in aeronautics and space-flight …

Meaning "mental image or picture" is from 1610s (the Greek word for it was ennoia, originally "act of thinking"), as is the sense "concept of something to be done; concept of what ought to be, …

Harper Douglas, "Etymology of empathy," Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed January 11, 2026, https://www.etymonline.com/word/empathy. Copy

The meaning "to carry (a rifle, etc.) in a military fashion" is from 1620s. Related: Ported; porting. The Latin verb is the source of many modern English words, including deport, export, import, …

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 …

1520s, "oblique or diagonal line," from French biais "a slant, a slope, an oblique," also figuratively, "an expedient, means" (13c., originally in Old French a past-participle adjective, "sideways, …

Middle English bilden, from late Old English byldan "construct a house," verb form of bold "house," from Proto-Germanic *buthla- (source also of Old Saxon bodl, Old Frisian bodel …