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charEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text

Back-formation from charcoal.

charEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text

Unknown, perhaps from Celtic, such as Irish ceara (“fiery red”) (found in personal names). Or, perhaps borrowed from Middle Low German schar (“flounder, dab”), from Old Saxon skard, from Proto-Germanic *skardaz, related to *skeraną (“to cut”), referring to its shape. If so, related to shard.

charEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text

From Middle English cherre (“odd job”), from Old English ċierr (“a turn, change, time, occasion, affair, business”), from ċierran (“to turn, change, turn oneself, go, come, proceed, turn back, return, regard, translate, persuade, convert, be converted, agree to, submit, make to submit, reduce”), from Proto-Germanic *karzijaną (“to turn”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gers- (“to bend, turn”). Cognate with Dutch keer (“a time, turn, occasion”), German Kehre (“a turn, bight, bend”) and kehren (“to sweep”) or umkehren (“to return or reverse”). More at chore, ajar.

charEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text

Clipping of character. Used as the name of a data type in some programming languages, including notably C.

charEnglish (en) · Etymology 5Source text

Non-rhotic spelling of cha.

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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

52REVIEWED RESULTS

12WORD DOSSIERS

12HISTORICAL NODES

12SOURCES

13CLAIMS

3WITNESSES

MODERN ENTRY POINTS

WORD DOSSIERS

noun and adjectivecontrarian claim

dairy

Milk, milk products, or a place and enterprise devoted to them; historically built on the occupational word for a woman managing milk and food production.

nouncontrarian claim

emoji

An English borrowing of Japanese 絵文字, literally a picture-character compound built from 絵 e “picture” and 文字 moji “written character.”

nouncontrarian claim

emoticon

A keyboard-character sequence depicting a facial expression, posture, emotion, or attitude; an English compound of emotion and icon.

noun and verbhistorical form

figure

A shape, representation, symbol, number, person, or act of calculation; borrowed through French from Latin figūra, form or shape.

Old High German strong masculine nouncontrarian claim

fīant

Old High German fīant—written fîant and fîjant in the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch's length-marking convention—was already a strong masculine noun meaning enemy, opponent, or adversary. The dictionary documents personal, public and military, spiritual, and specifically Devil senses across a large variant and inflectional record. Its most revealing evidence is grammatical: in fixed formulas, usually without an article, the old participial character could still shine through. Fîant uuesan could mean to be hostile, hate someone, or wish someone ill; fîant mahhôn meant make hostile, and zi fîante tuon could mean regard as an enemy or hate. The companion fîên article independently preserves the live weak verb to hate in eighth- and ninth-century Alemannic manuscripts. The noun therefore shows a lexical fossil whose older verbal force remained locally legible without ceasing to be a noun. The displayed pronunciation is an editorial normalized approximation, not a recorded historical audio object. All displayed Old High German passages are inspected dictionary or text-edition records, not directly inspected manuscript objects.

Old High German weak verbdossier summary

fīēn

Old High German fīēn—printed fîên in the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch—was a weak verb meaning to hate, not love, be hostile to, detest, or reject. The official dictionary says it is attested only in Alemannic manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries, then inventories an infinitive fien, present participle fiendi, second-person singular preterite fietos, and accusative plural masculine past participle fieta. Three rule-text records concern hating discipline, one’s own will, or no person; gloss records align the participial forms with Latin exosus or exosos; and an Esther gloss aligns fien with detestari. These are source-reported edition and dictionary records, not directly inspected manuscript objects, and the broad manuscript horizon does not identify one exact first token. A separate twelfth-century article printed fien [sic] with the gloss ubere is explicitly left uninterpreted by the dictionary and is not merged into this hate verb. Beside the verb, Old High German had the already lexicalized enemy noun fīant, whose old participial character could still shine through in fixed phrases. The graph therefore shows a living daughter verb beside a grammatical fossil without pretending that either attested form is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word itself. No historical sound recording exists and the dossier does not display a fabricated phonetic certainty.

Old English masculine nouncontrarian claim

hete

An attested Old English noun for hate, enmity, malice, spite, hostility, and persecution, productive in compounds and securely aligned with the Germanic hate family; whether Middle English hate directly continues it remains disputed, and the proposed deeper Indo-European route remains semantically opaque.

noundossier summary

hospital

A medical institution whose name first referred to guest accommodation and charitable lodging, through Medieval Latin hospitāle.

nounhistorical form

hostel

A lodging place, especially an inexpensive dormitory-style accommodation, continuing the older hospitality branch shared with hospital and hotel.

adjectivehistorical form

hostile

Enemy-like or antagonistic, borrowed through French and Latin from hostīlis, built on Latin hostis “stranger; enemy.”

nounhistorical form

hotel

A public lodging establishment, borrowed from French hôtel through Old French hostel and ultimately the Latin hospitality family.

adjective · noun · verbdossier summary

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.

ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY

HISTORICAL FORMS

deie

woman in charge of milking and making butter and cheese

DATE: Middle English
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Present-Day English / Indo-European

emoticon

keyboard characters depicting a facial expression, posture, emotion, or attitude

DATE: 1987–today
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

figure

shape; form; likeness; symbol; written character

DATE: Middle English
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Present-Day English / Indo-European

hospital

an institution for charitable residence and, later, medical care

DATE: 14th century–today
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Anglo-French / Indo-European

hospital

guest lodging or charitable institution

DATE: Anglo-French
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

hospital / ospitale

residence for pilgrims and travelers; charitable lodging for poor or infirm people

DATE: Middle English
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Medieval Latin / Indo-European

hospitāle

guest accommodation; hospice or charitable lodging

DATE: Medieval Latin
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 3

Latin / Indo-European

hostīlis

of or characteristic of an enemy

DATE: Latin antiquity
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Present-Day English / Indo-European

kindred

relatives or a family group; of the same ancestry; related in origin, nature, or character

DATE: before the 12th century–today
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1

Tocharian B / Indo-European

kwīpe

shame; modesty; woman comparison

DATE: Tocharian B
MATCH: language
DOSSIERS: 0

persone

person; character

DATE: Middle English
MATCH: gloss
DOSSIERS: 1