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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 LOCAL3 source sections across 1 headword matching “Bit”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
bitEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English bitte, bite, from Old English bita (“bit; fragment; morsel”) and bite (“a bite; cut”), from Proto-Germanic *bitô and *bitiz; both from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). More at bite. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian bit, Saterland Frisian Bit, Dutch bit, German Low German Beet, Biet, German Biss and Bissen, Danish bid, Swedish bit, Icelandic biti.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗bitEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form. See bite. Replaced a former strong past tense, seen in Middle English bot and Old English bāt.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗bitEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
Coined by John Tukey in 1946 as an abbreviation of binary digit, probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”. First used in print 1948 by Claude Shannon. Compare byte and nybble, with similar food associations.
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 →017
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
verbhistorical-form prefix
betroth
To promise in marriage; a Middle English prefixed formation built on the same historical noun that yielded truth and troth.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
dime
The United States ten-cent coin, named with an older English and French word for a tenth part or tithe.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old English strong masculine nd-stem nouncontrarian claim
frēond
Old English frēond is the directly attested source-language noun behind modern friend. OED analyzes it as an inherited strong masculine agent noun in -nd, ultimately a noun use of the present participle of the Germanic base behind free, and documents West Saxon frēond, Northumbrian and Kentish frīond, Kentish frīand, mutated frīend and frȳnd, endingless plurals, and re-formed frēondas. Bosworth–Toller prints freónd and friónd, explicitly links freónde loving to freón or freógan, and supplies examples for companion, ally, relation, friend of God, friend versus foe, and friends acting as arbitrators. OED independently preserves close companion, non-enemy, ally, and kinsman senses in Old English. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 152r was directly inspected at Beowulf 1018, where the pixels visibly preserve freondum in Heorot innan wæs freondum afylled. The route reuses the reviewed *frijōnd-, *frī-, and proposed *prī- nodes and then stops. The displayed pronunciation is a normalized approximation, not a recorded voice.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
husband
A married man in relation to a spouse; borrowed from a Norse compound whose earlier center was householder or master of a house.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjective · noun · verbcontrarian claim
kapu
A Hawaiian word for what is prohibited, sacred, consecrated, or set apart, continuing the Oceanic tapu family through the characteristic Hawaiian *t to k sound change.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · adjective · verbcontrarian claim
taboo
An English borrowing recorded in 1777 from Tongan tabu, now tapu, within an Oceanic family whose reconstructed form joins ritual restriction with sacredness.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗stative · modifier · noundossier summary
tapu
A Māori word for what is sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, or under atua protection, inherited within the wider Oceanic *tampu family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗027
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Middle English / Indo-European
bitrouthen
promise or pledge in marriage
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
bi-/be-
prefix used in bitrouthen
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old Norse / Indo-European
būa
to dwell; inhabit; prepare
- DATE
- Old Norse
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Hawaiian / Austronesian
kapu
prohibited, forbidden, sacred, consecrated, or set apart
- DATE
- Hawaiian record–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
taboo
a ritual or social prohibition; prohibited or set apart
- DATE
- 1777–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Tongan / Austronesian
tabu / tapu
forbidden, prohibited, unlawful; historically also sacred or consecrated
- DATE
- Tongan
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Māori / Austronesian
tapu
sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, or under atua protection
- DATE
- Māori record–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0319
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is emoticon another name or etymology for emoji?
No. Emoticon is English emotion plus icon. Emoji is Japanese e “picture” plus moji “character.” They can depict overlapping things without sharing a word formation.
resolvedprobableposition text
Was English fiend borrowed from Danish fjende?
No. They are collateral inherited continuations; English specialized the demonic branch much more strongly.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Do the three poetic verb records and 222 fjándi prose citations form a direct frequency comparison?
No. They come from different public corpora with different genres, coverage, editorial states, and counting rules.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Are friend and fiend the same root with opposite meanings?
No. OED says fiend shows a similar formation, but the two agent nouns are built on different verb bases. Parallel morphology does not establish cognacy.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did frēond literally mean one who loves in every context?
No. The formation motivates the inherited noun, but attested uses include companion, ally, relation, religious epithet, and legal arbitrator.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did Old English frēond mean only a close private companion?
No. OED separates close acquaintance, non-enemy or ally, and relation senses already in Old English; Bosworth–Toller adds patronal, religious, and arbitration contexts.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is hatred the older or more original word?
No. Hate is inherited from Old English noun and verb material; hatred is a Middle English formation first reported in the 13th century. Its suffix names a condition rather than linguistic originality.
resolvedprobableposition text
Does hatis underlie Gothic hatjan and hatizōn?
Historical grammar derives class-I hatjan from the consonantal stem of hatis, and the University of Texas derivational table builds class-II hatizōn “be angry” directly on hatiz-. The separate class-III hatan remains a wider paradigm and reconstruction problem rather than a proved direct daughter of this noun.
resolvedprobableposition text
Is Old High German hazzōn the same formation as Gothic hatizōn?
No such identity is established. Gothic hatizōn is explicitly analyzed as a class-II denominative from hatis through the stem hatiz-, while Orel places Old High German hazzōn under the *xatēnan ~ *xatōjanan alternatives. Similar normalized endings do not erase distinct immediate analyses.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does English whet descend from Old Saxon hōti?
No such direct descent is claimed. UT places whet and other Germanic sharpen or incite reflexes under *kʷē̆d- / *kʷō̆d-; Köbler uses that etymon for hōti, making them proposed deeper relatives if his route is right.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did taboo originally mean only “forbidden”?
No. The Tongan reflexes and wider Oceanic reconstruction carry a semantic field that includes prohibited, under ritual restriction, sacred, holy, and consecrated.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does tapu mean only “forbidden”?
No. Te Aka defines a culturally specific field spanning sacredness, restriction, being set apart, prohibition, atua protection, and social or environmental responsibility.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 7
RANK 8GRADE Aranked reveal
Etymology calls itself the “true account.”
Greek ἔτυμος “true, real” joined -λογία “account or study”; even that truth-word reaches a reconstructed root.
RANK 56GRADE Aranked reveal
The Old English friend was a loving-agent noun—but not merely a modern intimate.
OED and Bosworth–Toller preserve the morphology behind frēond: an inherited nd-stem formation tied to the verb meaning free or love. The same sources then refuse a slogan-sized definition. Old English uses cover close companion, ally or non-enemy, relation, friend of God, friend versus foe, and friends acting as arbitrators. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 152r visibly preserves freondum in a hall filled with favored people at Beowulf 1018. The unveiling is not that friend secretly means love in every sentence; it is that a loving-agent fossil became a socially versatile noun before modern English existed.
RANK 101GRADE Aranked reveal
To betroth is to bind by one’s truth or troth.
Middle English bitrouthen visibly combines bi-/be- with trouth, the historical fidelity noun before modern truth and troth were cleanly separated.
RANK 145GRADE Aranked reveal
English taboo did not come from Māori tapu.
Māori tapu and English taboo meet deeper in the Oceanic family. English borrowed the Tongan reflex; Māori independently preserves sacredness, prohibition, restriction, and atua protection.
RANK 146GRADE Aranked reveal
The k in kapu is a fossilized sound change.
Hawaiian kapu and Māori tapu are not misspellings of one another: Hawaiian regularly changed inherited *t toward k while preserving the sacred and prohibited semantic field.
RANK 147GRADE Acontrarian claim
An 11th-century mention is not an 11th-century mass habit.
Bīrūnī’s report establishes Persian scholarly awareness of čāy; it does not date widespread Persian drinking, and Iranica leaves the adoption mechanism unknown.
RANK 159GRADE Aranked reveal
It did not begin as merely “forbidden.”
Tongan and reconstructed Oceanic evidence joins prohibition and ritual restriction with sacredness and consecration.
041
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
055
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Hirðskrá manuscript record
hatr / hatr / c.1300, source-reported
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — ¹hatr, masculine analysiswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Andrews Hawaiian dictionary entry
kapu / kapu / 1836 Hawaiian dictionary record
Kapu — Nā Puke Wehewehe ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻiwitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Ludwigslied, public or military enemies
fīant / fīant / ninth-century Ludwigslied; source-reported
Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch — fîant, fîjantwitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Gloss record, present participle
fīēn / fīēn / eighth- or ninth-century Alemannic manuscript; source-reported
Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch — fîênwitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Laws of Æthelberht, friends arbitrate
frēond / frēond / Old English law, source-reported
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online — freóndreporting 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.