GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
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 “Gib”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
gibEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Unknown (14th century). Perhaps abbreviated from Gilbert, the name of the cat in the medieval fables of Reynard the Fox, Romaunt of the Rose, and so on.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗gibEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Unknown (late 18th century).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗gibEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
Shortened from giblet.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗gibEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
From the trademark GIB, registered by Fletcher Building Holdings Limited, the major brand of plasterboard in New Zealand.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗gibEnglish (en) · Etymology 5Source text
Pronunciation spelling of give
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- GibEnglish · e-38538-2902
Gib, jib, n. the projecting arm of a crane: a wedge-shaped piece of metal holding another in place, &c.—v.t. to fasten with such.
Read the full source record → - GibEnglish · e-38538-2903
Gib, jib, n. a cat—Also Gib′-cat (Shak.). [A corr. of Gilbert, as 'Tom-cat,' hardly for glib=lib.]
Read the full source record →
013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
Old Norse verbcontrarian claim
fjá
Old Norse fjá was a verb meaning to hate. The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose classifies it as poetic and exposes zero prose citations; its glossarium links point to the early form fía and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *fi(j)ēn-. Cleasby and Vigfússon call the verb obsolete, compare Gothic fijan and Old English feon or fjan, and locate it in Hýmiskviða 22 and Lokasenna 35, with the reflexive fjásk in Skírnismál 33. Fritzner independently gives the same three locations. The normalized verse texts preserve three different grammatical surfaces: goð fjá in Hýmiskviða, mangi fíár in Lokasenna, and Freyr fiásk in Skírnismál. Lexicon Poeticum likewise reports three poetic records, but explicitly warns that its concordance is unreviewed and that dates should be checked. These are source-reported lexical and edited-text records, not directly inspected manuscript objects, and three records in the reviewed poetic concordance are not a census of every Old Norse utterance. The finite verb became a tiny poetic fossil while its inherited participial relative fjándi became the ordinary enemy noun and accumulated 222 citations in ONP's prose corpus. Those corpus totals are not directly frequency-comparable, but the contrast makes the grammatical survival visible. The generated possible runic inscription shown by modern dictionary transcriptions is not historical evidence and is excluded. No historical sound recording exists, so the dossier does not fabricate one exact pronunciation.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old High German strong masculine noundossier summary
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.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivecontrarian claim
legible
Capable of being read or deciphered; from Late Latin legibilis and Latin legere “to read.”
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗023
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Latin / Indo-European
legibilis
that can be read
- DATE
- Late Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
legible
capable of being read or deciphered; later also discernible or understandable
- DATE
- 15th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
legible
capable of being read
- DATE
- Middle English, late 14th–15th century
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
034
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
openproposedposition text
Is *leǵ- the only published deepest root shape?
No. Latin legere is traditionally compared with *leǵ-, while *sleǵ- remains a published alternative.
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.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 5GRADE Aranked reveal
Calculation began with a pebble in the hand.
Latin calculus was a small stone used for reckoning before calculation became abstract.
RANK 197GRADE A−contrarian claim
Legible belongs to gathering and reading.
Late Latin legibilis means able to be read and comes from legere, the Latin gather, select, and read family.
043
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary7 CLAIM LINKS
Legible — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
American Heritage Dictionary: legible
American Heritage Dictionary Editors / 2022
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary4 CLAIM LINKS
Legible — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗054
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDmanuscript
Codex Argenteus, Luke 1:71
hatan / hatan / early 6th century
Codex Argenteus facsimile 145 — folio 123r, Luke 1:69–77witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDmanuscript
Codex Argenteus, Luke 1:71
fijan / fijan / early 6th century
Codex Argenteus facsimile 145 — folio 123r, Luke 1:69–77witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
German Bible enemy proverb
Feind / Feind / 1483
Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm — feind, m.witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster source-reported English record
legible / legible / 15th century
Legible — Definition, Word History, and First Known Usewitness 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.