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THE GRAPH.
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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL2 source sections across 1 headword matching “Action”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
actionEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin āctum Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin āctiō Old French aucionbor. Middle English accioun English action From Middle English accioun, accion, from Old French aucion, acciun, from Latin āctiō(n) (“act of doing or making”), from āct(us) + action suffix -iō(n), perfect passive participle of agere (“do, act”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti. See also act, active. By surface analysis, act + -ion.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗actionEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin āctum Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin āctiō Old French aucionbor. Middle English accioun English action From Middle English accioun, accion, from Old French aucion, acciun, from Latin āctiō(n) (“act of doing or making”), from āct(us) + action suffix -iō(n), perfect passive participle of agere (“do, act”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti. See also act, active. By surface analysis, act + -ion.
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.
Browse the independently attributed sources →0112
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
German masculine noundossier summary
Hass
The modern German noun for intense aversion, rejection, or hostility toward a person, group, or institution. Duden traces Middle and Old High German haʒ to suffering, sorrow, and resentment and records the 1996 spelling change from Haß to Hass. DWDS/Pfeifer reports the Old High German noun from the eighth century and places it in the Germanic family of Old Saxon heti, Old English hete, Old Norse hatr, Gothic hatis, and related forms. Grimm’s DWB preserves a more complicated semantic record: hostile pursuit or action, anger expressed in deeds, ordinary hostile disposition, and even measured rivalry during friendly competition. The reviewed route reuses *hatiz- and the qualified *ḱh₂d-es- / *ḱeh₂d- comparison, then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
bayou
English bayou, recorded by 1763, came from Louisiana French bayouque. An early Choctaw *bayok is a plausible proposed source, but the historical form and its alleged contraction to modern bók are not securely attested.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
fiction
Invented narrative, imaginative creation, pretense, or legal assumption; borrowed through French from Latin fictio, an action of shaping, molding, or feigning.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German weak verbcontrarian claim
hassen
The modern German weak verb for feeling hatred toward a person or for strongly disliking a thing or action. Duden traces it through Middle High German haʒʒen and Old High German haʒʒēn / haʒʒōn and adds that the older verb also meant pursue. Grimm’s DWB makes the semantic contrast explicit: it calls hostile pursuit or persecution the original sense and then describes a later, more muted center in hostile disposition rather than hostile deeds. BMZ and Lexer independently document the Middle High German verb and its literary record. The reviewed ancestry follows the reconstructed Germanic weak-verb alternatives into the *hatiz- family, preserves the qualified *ḱh₂d-es- / *ḱeh₂d- proposal, and then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Norse noun, chiefly neuterhistorical form
hatr
An Old Norse noun for hatred, enmity, or spite. The University of Copenhagen Dictionary of Old Norse Prose gives the main neuter entry 54 citations, while a separately analyzed masculine entry has only one citation and is flagged as possibly an elementary error. The neuter corpus also contains one cautiously proposed mockery or scorn sense aligned with Latin irrisio. A c.1150-1200 manuscript visibly preserves Hatr in a line ONP transcribes Hatr hafa þeir engla and aligns with Latin Odium. The reviewed ancestry joins the Germanic *hatiz- family, preserves the disputed *ḱh₂d-es- and *ḱeh₂d- comparison, and then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old High German weak-verb citation formdossier summary
hazzōn
An Old High German citation form in the inherited Germanic hate-verb family, printed beside hazzēn and spelling variants hazēn, hazōn, haʒʒēn, and haʒʒōn. Starling’s source record dates hazzēn to the eighth century and hazzōn to the ninth; Duden and Grimm’s DWB group the ēn and ōn forms in the history of German hassen. Corpus-wide research independently shows that some Old High German class-III ēn verbs also occur with class-II ōn forms, but the accessible abstract does not establish that hazzōn is one of its twenty repeatedly attested double forms. DWB reports haʒôn aligned with Latin aemulari and the forms hatamas and hatent with insequamur and insequuntur. Those reports support an action range involving following or hostile pursuit; they are not directly inspected manuscript tokens. Pokorny’s account, as transmitted by Starling, explicitly warns that the Germanic evidence does not prove “pursue” was the root’s basic meaning. The route therefore distinguishes the normalized headword, the combined historical variants, the reconstructed Germanic weak verb and noun family, the qualified Indo-European comparison, and the point where knowledge ends.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German weak verbcontrarian claim
hetzen
A German weak verb whose modern senses range from driving or hunting quarry, through hurrying, to inciting hostility. The medieval record centers on setting dogs after game and already extends the action to turning people against one another. Comparative sources connect the verb with Old English hettan and Gothic hatjan, but the Old High German bridge and the exact prehistoric formation remain editorially disputed.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
humiliation
The act, state, or instance of humiliating or being humiliated; degradation, disgrace, or shame.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbdossier summary
lecture
A formal instructional talk, named through a Latin lineage whose central action was reading.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
legislation
The making of laws or laws collectively; from French and Late Latin legislatio, a law-proposing or law-bearing formation.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivecontrarian claim
regular
Conforming to a rule, pattern, order, or interval; borrowed through French from Late Latin rēgulāris.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
rule
A guide, standard, exercise of authority, or measuring straightedge; borrowed through French from Latin rēgula.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Latin / Indo-European
-tiō
suffix of verbal action
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Ancient Greek / Indo-European
-ίζειν
-ízeindo or practice the action of the base
- DATE
- Ancient Greek
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Ancient Greek / Indo-European
-ιστής
-istḗsagent or person associated with an action
- DATE
- Ancient Greek
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
German / Indo-European
Haß / hasz
hostile disposition, hatred, anger, or hostile action
- DATE
- New High German spelling history before the 1996 reform
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
fictiō
action of shaping or molding; feigning; pretense; legal fiction
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
fig-
variant stem used in the action noun fictiō
- DATE
- Latin bound stem
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
German / Indo-European
hassen
to feel hatred toward someone; to feel strong aversion toward a person, thing, or action
- DATE
- New High German and current German
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle High German / Indo-European
haʒ
hostility, hostile pursuit or action, anger in action, or measured rivalry
- DATE
- Middle High German
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Late Latin / Indo-European
humiliātiō
action of lowering; abasement; subduing or humbling through mortification
- DATE
- Christian and Late Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
French / Indo-European
législation
law-making authority, action, or body of laws
- DATE
- French, 14th century onward
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
reule
guide for proper action; rule
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
verb
a grammatical word class expressing action, occurrence, or state
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0323
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openproposedposition text
Is Choctaw bayuk a securely attested source of bayou?
No. An early Choctaw *bayok is plausible and accepted in a major handbook, but later bayuk is not securely attested and contraction to bók was conjectural.
openprobableposition text
Can the exact pronunciation and path into fjá be recovered?
Not completely. Vowel quantity, optional glide, contraction, surface variation, and poetic normalization belong to historical analysis rather than recorded audio.
openprobableposition text
Can the exact Proto-Germanic pronunciation and inflection be recovered?
Not completely. OED reconstructs vowel contraction and formal variation, but no recording or written Proto-Germanic paradigm survives.
openproposedposition text
Did hate originally mean pursuit or persecution?
The Germanic action evidence makes pursuit or persecution a serious proposal, not a settled origin. Beowulf, hettan, German hetzen, and Hati support the comparison, but the full deep family remains murky.
openproposedposition text
Was pursuit the original meaning of hatian?
Possibly relevant, not established. Beowulf, hettan, German hetzen, and the action contexts motivate a pursuit or persecution proposal, but the deeper semantic comparison remains unresolved.
openprobableposition text
Did Old Saxon hatōn mean pursue as well as hate?
Köbler lexicographically gives both hassen and verfolgen, so the action range belongs in the record. The four-locus inventory does not by itself assign both readings to every token or establish their chronology.
openprobableposition text
Does hatōn securely descend from *ḱeh₂d-?
Only as a qualified proposal. Formal correspondence is published, but grief, pain, care, mourning, pursuit, hostile action, and hatred do not form one transparent semantic sequence.
openproposedposition text
Was the formation a causative “make hate” or an action verb “make pursue”?
Both descriptions occur, and their priority is not settled here. Duden analyzes a causative to hassen; Orel derives *xatjanan from the hate noun; Bailey and the medieval record foreground chase or persecution.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Has Hass always meant only intense inner aversion?
No. Modern Duden centers intense aversion and hostility, but DWB reports Middle High German hostile action, anger expressed in deeds, pursuit, and measured rivalry beside the familiar disposition sense.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does modern Hass require a hostile action?
No. Duden defines a strong feeling of rejection or hostility; DWB says New High German ordinarily preserves hostile disposition. Action-centered uses matter historically without becoming a requirement for every modern token.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can fjende refer only to people?
No. Historical and current records apply it to states, military forces, animals, ideologies, weather, sleep, passions, and other harmful abstractions.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is this hate verb the same word as feón meaning rejoice?
No. Bosworth–Toller records a separate homographic feón meaning rejoice, be glad, or exult. Shared spelling after contraction does not establish shared sense or ancestry.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 11
RANK 5GRADE Aranked reveal
Calculation began with a pebble in the hand.
Latin calculus was a small stone used for reckoning before calculation became abstract.
RANK 25GRADE Acontrarian claim
Hate was enemy-directed action as well as feeling in Old English.
Old English hatian could mean treating as an enemy, persecuting, or injuring; Beowulf puts the verb beside hostile deeds. The deeper claim that pursuit was the first meaning remains open, and the graph says so.
RANK 27GRADE Aranked reveal
The Old English verb survives most visibly as an enemy.
The located weak-verb corpus inventory gives hettan only one form: hettende. Bosworth–Toller records that surface family repeatedly under hettend, “enemy” or “antagonist,” including Genesis and the Phoenix. The verb is therefore not a neat recovered paradigm; it is a lemma inferred at the edge between action, agent, and lexicalized foe.
RANK 40GRADE Aranked reveal
Modern Danish kept the enemy but lost the hate verb inside its grammar.
DDO identifies fjende as historically a present participle of a verb corresponding to Old Norse fjá, to hate or persecute. Old Danish fiende then survives through a remarkable surface cloud: Fiende, Fiænde, Finde, Fînde, clipped Fiend, and both two- and three-syllable scans. The current noun no longer means that every enemy literally feels hate; it names active opposition and extends to states, ideologies, animals, weather, and abstractions. The grammatical fossil unveils a history, not a timeless essence.
RANK 43GRADE Acontrarian claim
Old Norse hate was action, contempt, humiliation, and feeling inside one verb.
ONP's 101-citation prose article orders four active senses before its participial and reciprocal branches: persecute; despise, reject, or cast aside; mock or humiliate; and hate, despise, or stand hostile. Fritzner independently moves from pursuit and destruction to ordinary hate. A c1200 manuscript leaf visibly writes hata in a command to love chastity and hate no person. The article's sense order is not a chronology, and the poetic concordance is explicitly unreviewed; the reveal is the documented semantic range, not an invented first essence.
RANK 60GRADE A-contrarian claim
German hassen has an action buried under the feeling.
Duden says Middle High German haʒʒen and Old High German haʒʒēn / haʒʒōn formerly also meant pursue. Grimm’s DWB goes further: it calls hostile pursuit or persecution the original sense, reports Old High German following or pursuit alignments and Behaim persecution contexts, then explicitly describes the later sense as more about hostile disposition than hostile deeds. Modern Duden centers hatred and strong aversion. The contrast is real; the one certain prehistoric scene is not.
RANK 67GRADE Aranked reveal
The Indigenous route is real scholarship—but not a closed case.
English securely borrowed Louisiana French bayouque. Early Choctaw *bayok is plausible, while the oft-repeated bayuk form and its contraction to modern bók remain insecure.
RANK 112GRADE Aranked reveal
Woman does not contain womb.
Old English wīfman combines wīf, woman or wife, with mann, human being or person; contraction hid the compound in plain sight.
RANK 142GRADE Aranked reveal
Conscious began as knowing—including knowing with another.
Latin cōnscius could describe awareness or knowledge shared with another person. English later centered the word on private awareness, wakefulness, and deliberate action.
RANK 155GRADE Aranked reveal
Regular is measured order.
Late Latin rēgulāris grows from rēgula, the straight bar or rule. Ordinary, scheduled, and normal are later abstractions from conformity to a rule.
RANK 160GRADE Aranked reveal
Hospitality contains both host and guest.
Latin hospes could name either participant in reciprocal hospitality; the modern practice descends from a relationship, not just the host's action.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “action.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
052
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s Lexicon technicum prints DECIMAL in the head phrase DECIMAL Fraction and begins its mathematical definition.
decimal / decimal / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and scienceswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Hostile pursuit or action in Kudrun
haʒ / Hass / Middle High German literary record, source-reported
Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm — hasz, m.reporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.