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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL3 source sections across 1 headword matching “Bad”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
badEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English bad, badde (“wicked, evil, depraved”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a shortening of Old English bæddel (“hermaphrodite”) (for loss of -el compare Middle English muche from Old English myċel, and Middle English wenche from Old English wenċel), or at least related to it and/or to bǣ̆dan (“to defile”), compare Old High German pad (“hermaphrodite”). Alternatively, perhaps a loan from Old Norse into Middle English, compare Norwegian bad (“effort, trouble, fear”, neuter noun), East Danish bad (“damage, destruction, fight”, neuter noun), from the Proto-Germanic noun *badą, whence also Proto-Germanic *badōną (“to frighten”), Old Saxon undarbadōn (“to frighten”), Norwegian Nynorsk bada (“to weigh down, press”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to bend, press, push, oppress”). False cognate of Persian بد (bad).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗badEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
From Middle English bad, from Old English bæd, first- and third-person singular indicative past tense of biddan (“to ask”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗badEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
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Browse the independently attributed sources →012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nouncontrarian claim
disaster
A catastrophe whose name preserves an astrological model of misfortune: an unfavorable star.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun and adjectivecontrarian claim
male
A sex-class term borrowed through Anglo-French from Latin masculus, a diminutive formation on mās.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗020
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
No reviewed record in this collection contains “bad.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is the “bad star” composition real?
Yes. Italian disastro is analyzed as a negative prefix plus astro “star,” reflecting an astrological frame for misfortune.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does male come from mal-, bad?
No. Male comes through French from Latin masculus and mās; mal- comes from a different Latin family headed by malus, bad.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 115GRADE Acontrarian claim
Male is not mal-, bad.
Male descends through Anglo-French masle from Latin masculus and mās; the bad prefix mal- belongs to Latin malus.
RANK 213GRADE A−contrarian claim
A disaster was once a “bad star.”
Italian disastro joins a negative prefix to the word for star.
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BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “bad.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
06
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