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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 LOCAL5 source sections across 1 headword matching “Fit”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
fitEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Possibly from Middle English fit (“an adversary of equal power”), of uncertain further origin. The original sense appears to have been "to marshal or deploy troops", which shifted to "to suit (troops to a certain location" > "suitable", and may be further related to Icelandic fitja (“to web, knit, cast on”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗fitEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Unknown, possibly from Old English fitt (“song”), or from the sense of fitted to length. Compare Old Saxon *fittea (attested in the borrowed Latin vittea).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗fitEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
Unknown. From Middle English fit (“hardship, danger”), possibly from Old English fitt (“conflict”)—a word only attested once. Compare Cornish fit (“game match, bout”); or else, maybe cognate with Italian fitta (“sudden and stabbing pain”) (see further at Latin fīgere).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗fitEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
Formed from fight on the model of bite:bit and light:lit.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗fitEnglish (en) · Etymology 5Source text
Clipping of outfit.
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- FitEnglish · e-38538-1717
Fit, fit, adj. adapted to any particular end or standard, prepared for: qualified: convenient: proper: properly trained and ready, as for a race.—v.t. to make fit or suitable: to suit one thing to another: to be adapted
Read the full source record → - FitEnglish · e-38538-1718
Fit, fit, n. a sudden attack by convulsions, as apoplexy, epilepsy, &c.: convulsion or paroxysm: a temporary attack of anything, as laughter, &c.: a sudden effort or motion: a passing humour.—v.t. (Shak.) to wrench, as b
Read the full source record → - FitEnglish · e-38538-1719
Fit, fit, n. a song, or part of a song or ballad.—Also Fitt, Fitte, Fytte. [A.S. fitt, a song.]
Read the full source record →
012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun · adjectivecontrarian claim
kind
An inherited English word whose noun history runs through nature, birth, class, and family while its adjective history runs through what is natural, native, fitting, and only later benevolent.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb, adjectivehistorical form
select
To choose or mark out from a group, borrowed from Latin selectus and seligere, literally gathering apart.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗026
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*h₂erh₁-
fit together
- DATE
- oldest reviewed Proto-Indo-European form
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*kundiz
natural, native, or fitting
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old English / Indo-European
gecynde
natural, native, innate, proper, fitting, or inherited by birth
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
kind
a nature or class; goods rather than money; natural, fitting, or benevolent
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
kīnd(e)
natural, innate, fitting, proper, native, affectionate, loving, or benevolent
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
select
to choose from a group; chosen for value or fitness
- DATE
- 1565–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
035
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
openestablishedposition text
Does the trailing star mean that no nominative form is attested?
No simple rule of that kind fits this entry: Köbler explicitly reports nominative plural hotie and huotia plus nominative singular huoti beneath hōti*. The exact convention remains unstated in the located material.
openprobableposition text
Does the English record begin in the 1570s or in 1572?
Merriam-Webster reports 1572; Etymonline reports the 1570s. The exact year fits within the broader decade but remains a source-reported horizon.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did kind always mean benevolent or nice?
No. Old English gecynde is natural, native, innate, fitting, proper, or inherited by birth. Middle English evidence adds affectionate and benevolent uses, making modern moral kindness a semantic development rather than the original whole meaning.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 22GRADE Aranked reveal
Kind is not kin with a d—and kindness did not begin as niceness.
Kind and kin descend through separate Germanic formations and meet only at the deeper birth root. The adjective first carries natural, native, fitting, and proper senses; benevolence becomes prominent through later semantic development.
RANK 23GRADE Aranked reveal
The d in kindred is an intruder—and kind is not in the word.
Kindred is kin plus a fossilized native element meaning a condition or state. One branch reaches the birth root; the other reaches a fit-together root. The modern d arrived between n and r after the compound already existed.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “fit.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
052
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The CHIMES entry in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses calculate in instructions about clock-chime numbers.
calculate / calculate / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and scienceswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Morkinskinna
hata / hata / GKS 1009 fol manuscript c1275; source-reported
ONP citation — hataz in Morkinskinna 103witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗06
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