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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL13 source sections across 2 headwords matching “A”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
AEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English and Old English upper case letter A and split of Middle English and Old English upper case letter Æ. * The Old English letters A and Æ replaced the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letters ᚪ (a, “āc”) and ᚫ (æ, “æsc”), derived from the Runic letter ᚫ (a, “Ansuz”), in the 7th century.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗AEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
* (highest rank, grade, music): From the initial position of the letter A in the English alphabet. * (blood type): From A antigen
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
The letter name is from Middle English ā, from Old French, ultimately from Latin ā. Use of the Latin letter in (Old) English displaced the futhorc letter ᚪ (a) beginning in the 7th century, and partially also ᚫ (æ).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-West Germanic *ain Old English ān Middle English an Middle English a English a From Middle English a, an, from Old English ān (“one; a; lone; sole”). More at one. The "n" was gradually lost before consonants in almost all dialects by the 15th century. Cognate with Alemannic German a (“a, an”), East Franconian a (“a, an”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
* From Middle English a, o, from Old English a-, an, on. * Unstressed form of on.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
From Middle English a, ha contraction of have, or haven.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 5Source text
From Middle English a, a reduced form of he (“he”)/ha (“he”), heo (“she”)/ha (“she”), ha (“it”), and hie, hie (“they”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 6Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Germanic *ab Proto-West Germanic *ab Old English æf Old English of Middle English of English a From Middle English of, with apocope of the final f and vowel reduction.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 7Source text
From Northern Middle English aw, alteration of all.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 9Source text
Contraction of gonna, itself a reduction of going to; see Etymology 8 above (“to”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 10Source text
Contraction of and.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 14Source text
Borrowed from Russian а (a).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗aEnglish (en) · Etymology 16Source text
From the common method of counting semiquavers as "one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a" and so on, so forth.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Chambers (1908)
1908- AEnglish · e-37683-1
A, the first letter in our alphabet, its corresponding symbol standing first also in many other alphabets derived from the Phœnician. It originated in the hieroglyphic picture of an eagle (Old Egyptian ahom), the cursive
Read the full source record → - AEnglish · e-37683-2
A, the indefinite article, a broken-down form of An, and used before words beginning with the sound of a consonant. [An was a new development, after the Conquest, of the A.S. numeral án, one.]
Read the full source record → - AEnglish · e-37683-3
A, ä or ā, a prep., derived from the old prep. on, and still used, as a prefix, in afoot, afield, apart, asleep, nowadays, twice-a-day; also with verbal nouns, as a-building, to be a-doing, to set a-going. It is now admi
Read the full source record → - AEnglish · e-37683-4
A, ä, a dialectic corruption of he or she, as in quotha, (Shak.) 'A babbled of green fields.'—A, usually written a', Scotch for all; A, a form of the L. prep. ab, from, of, used before consonants, as in Thomas à Kempis,
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