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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 LOCAL6 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Fig”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
FigEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Calque of Arabic التِين (at-tīn), after the first word of the sura.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗FigEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
figEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English fige, fygge (also fyke, from Old English fīc, see fike), borrowed from Anglo-Norman figue, borrowed from Old French figue, from Old Occitan figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca (“fig”), from Latin fīcus (“fig tree”), from a pre-Indo European language, perhaps Phoenician 𐤐𐤂 (pg, literally “ripe fig”) (compare Biblical Hebrew פַּגָּה (paggâ, “early fallen fig”), Classical Syriac ܦܓܐ (paggāʾ), dialectal Arabic فَجّ (fajj), فِجّ (fijj)). (Another Semitic root (compare Akkadian 𒈠 (tīʾu, literally “fig”)) was borrowed into Ancient Greek as σῦκον (sûkon) (whence English sycophant; Boeotian τῦκον (tûkon)) and Armenian as թուզ (tʻuz).) The soap-making sense derives from the resemblance of the granulations in and texture of the soap to those of a fig. Doublet of fico.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗figEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English fige, fygge (also fyke, from Old English fīc, see fike), borrowed from Anglo-Norman figue, borrowed from Old French figue, from Old Occitan figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca (“fig”), from Latin fīcus (“fig tree”), from a pre-Indo European language, perhaps Phoenician 𐤐𐤂 (pg, literally “ripe fig”) (compare Biblical Hebrew פַּגָּה (paggâ, “early fallen fig”), Classical Syriac ܦܓܐ (paggāʾ), dialectal Arabic فَجّ (fajj), فِجّ (fijj)). (Another Semitic root (compare Akkadian 𒈠 (tīʾu, literally “fig”)) was borrowed into Ancient Greek as σῦκον (sûkon) (whence English sycophant; Boeotian τῦκον (tûkon)) and Armenian as թուզ (tʻuz).) The soap-making sense derives from the resemblance of the granulations in and texture of the soap to those of a fig. Doublet of fico.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗figEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Variation of fike.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗figEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
See figging.
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- FigEnglish · e-38538-1626
Fig, fig, n. the fig-tree (Ficus), or its fruit, growing in warm climates: a thing of little consequence.—v.t. (Shak.) to insult by a contemptuous motion of the fingers.—ns. Fig′-leaf, the leaf of the fig-tree: an imitat
Read the full source record → - FigEnglish · e-38538-1627
Fig, fig, n. (coll.) figure: dress.—v.t. to dress, get up.—n. Fig′gery, dressy ornament.
Read the full source record →
0111
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact historical form
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 ↗noun and verbheadword prefix
figure
A shape, representation, symbol, number, person, or act of calculation; borrowed through French from Latin figūra, form or shape.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbcontrarian claim
boomerang
An Aboriginal Australian borrowing recorded in English by 1824. Dharug and Dharawal forms have been proposed, but the Australian National Dictionary Centre says the exact source language remains uncertain.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb · noundossier summary
checkmate
An inescapable chess defeat and, figuratively, complete thwarting; a compound transmitted through French, Arabic, and Persian chess language.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Swedish common-gender noundossier summary
fiende
The ordinary Swedish noun for an enemy, opponent, hostile state, or figurative threat continues Old Swedish fiande or fiände and an inherited Germanic present-participial formation: literally the hating one. Svenska Akademiens current dictionary calls the word Common Germanic and gives the original force hatande; SAOB and Hellquist independently derive the noun from the fi(j)- hate verb behind Gothic fijan and Old Norse fjá. Modern Swedish hata belongs to a separate Germanic hat- family, so fiende is not transparently built from the verb Swedish speakers now use for hate. Historical Swedish also used Fienden for the Devil, but that branch is not the word’s only or current central meaning. All medieval and early-modern examples here are source-reported lexical records, not directly inspected manuscript objects.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Danish common-gender noundossier summary
fjende
Modern Danish fjende is the ordinary noun for a person, state, force, ideological opponent, or figurative thing that harms something else. Den Danske Ordbog derives it from Old Norse fjándi, compares German Feind, and identifies the older formation as a present participle of a verb corresponding to Old Norse fjá, to hate or persecute. Gammeldansk Ordbog records fiende broadly from 1100–1300. Ordbog over det danske Sprog preserves fiende, finde, and related spellings, an ordinary enemy sense, military and animal uses, abstract threats, and a special religious Devil branch. Holbergordbog shows that Fiende could still scan as either three syllables or two, alongside Fiænde, Finde, Fînde, and clipped Fiend. The word is therefore a grammatical fossil, not a current psychological definition: a lexicalized one-who-hates became the ordinary Danish enemy noun and accumulated broad contextual work. The current pronunciations are dictionary records, not retrojections into medieval Danish. No manuscript or print object is claimed as directly inspected.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
icon
An image, likeness, representative figure, or display symbol, borrowed through Late Latin from Greek eikōn.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
person
An individual human being, historically from Latin persōna, whose older semantic field includes theatrical mask, character, and role.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verb · adjectivedossier summary
salt
Common salt and the wider family of saline substances and figurative savor; an inherited Germanic word in a deep Indo-European salt family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
truce
A temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement; inherited through a Middle English plural of a word for agreement or pledge.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Dutch masculine nounhistorical form
vijand
The ordinary Dutch noun for an enemy or opponent descends through Middle Dutch viant or vient and Old Dutch fīunt or fīant from a Germanic present-participial formation: literally the hating one. ONW counts twenty-six Old Dutch records and says the corresponding hate verb is no longer known in Dutch; VMNW counts 407 thirteenth-century records across enemy, Devil, and monster senses. Several Dutch etymologists propose that the medieval use for the Devil helped preserve the word’s full ending, unlike vriend, but they mark that explanation as possible or probable rather than demonstrated. The earliest Old Dutch Devil reading is itself textually disputed, and the Wachtendonck Psalms witnesses are later copies, not directly inspected tenth-century objects.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0211
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Latin / Indo-European
fig-
variant stem used in the action noun fictiō
- DATE
- Latin bound stem
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
figure
shape; representation; symbol; number; person
- DATE
- 13th century–today
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
figure
shape; form; likeness; symbol; written character
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Anglo-French / Indo-European
figure
shape; form; likeness
- DATE
- Anglo-French
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old French / Indo-European
figure
shape; form; likeness
- DATE
- Old French
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Latin / Indo-European
figūra
shape; form; likeness; figure of speech
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Swedish / Indo-European
fiende
enemy or opponent; a hostile person, state, force, or figurative threat
- DATE
- modern Swedish record
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Danish / Indo-European
fjende
enemy or opponent; hostile person, state, force, ideology, animal, or figurative threat
- DATE
- modern Danish and documented early-modern continuation
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Etruscan / Tyrsenian
phersu
masked figure or ritual character
- DATE
- Etruscan, 6th century BCE
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
salt
sodium chloride; saline substance; later figurative savor and scientific chemical class
- DATE
- Old English continuation–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Dutch / Indo-European
vijand
enemy or opponent; a hostile person, group, force, or figurative threat
- DATE
- New Dutch and current Dutch
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0314
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 11
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Did figure begin as a word only for numbers?
No. Its Latin and medieval fields include shape, form, likeness, symbol, and representation; numerical use is one branch of a wider history.
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Does figure descend from dough because both mean something shaped?
No. Latin figūra and Germanic dough forms are separate root formations under *dheigh-.
openprobableposition text
When did exhume acquire the archival recovery metaphor?
The modern dictionary records the figurative sense, but the reviewed evidence does not date one secure semantic pivot.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can Feind refer only to a personal human enemy?
No. Duden also records hostile powers, enemy soldiers or troops, threats to a group, figurative natural enemies, and opponents of practices or causes.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is figurative checkmate a late metaphor?
Not entirely. Merriam-Webster reports Middle English chekmaten with both chess and frustrate senses.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does fiction descend from figure?
No. Latin fictiō and figūra are sibling formations in the fingere and *dheigh- family; neither English word is the parent of the other.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does modern fiende mean only a person who privately hates someone?
No. SO and SAOB cover personal opponents, hostile states or forces, military collectives, natural enemies, and figurative nonhuman threats.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is the Devil the central current meaning of fiende?
No. SO defines an opponent prepared to harm a counterpart and supplies ordinary, military, figurative, and natural-enemy uses. SAOB marks the older Devil use as barely current by 1924.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does the root reveal that every enemy is truly a hater?
No. Etymology records historical formation, not an immutable present-day essence. Modern fiende covers people, states, armies, forces, and figurative threats whether or not literal hatred is evidenced.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did legible begin as a word for general understandability?
The secure formation is literal reading: Late Latin legibilis from legere “to read.” Discernible and understandable are later or extended senses, not the morphological source.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does modern vijand refer only to one personally hated individual?
No. Current and historical Dutch evidence covers persons, groups, political or military opponents, figurative threats, diseases, animals, and plant threats.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
RANK 128GRADE Aranked-word prefix
A figure and dough share a shaping root.
Latin figūra and the Germanic dough noun follow different formations back to *dheigh-, to form or build.
RANK 61GRADE Aranked reveal
Its most famous behavior is not universal—and even its exact donor language is unsettled.
Many hunting and fighting boomerangs do not return. Dharug and Dharawal sources have been proposed, while ANU keeps the exact language unresolved.
RANK 133GRADE Aranked reveal
Fiction is historically something shaped.
Latin fictiō names shaping or molding, feigning, and pretense before English literary narrative becomes one major center.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
056
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for figure
figure / figure / 13th century
Figure — Definition, Word History, and First Known Useattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Seventeenth-century figurative tree-enemy use
fiende / fiende / 1651
Svenska Akademiens ordbok — FIENDEreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Source-reported English record for the algorithm spelling
algorithm / algorithm / 1699
Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: Awitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
television figurative-threat use
fjende / fjende / modern example dated 1992 by source
Den Danske Ordbog — fjendereporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Sweet’s edited Pastoral Care distinction
hatian / hatian / Old English Pastoral Care record
King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, page 353witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
King Alfred's translation of Augustine, degrees of friendship
frēond / friend / late Old English, source-reported
Oxford English Dictionary — friend, n. & adj.witness excerpt / 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.