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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 LOCAL1 source section across 1 headword matching “Ism”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
ismEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
From the suffix -ism (“belief”), particularly (in the 19th century) in the sense of "social movement". Compare phobia, from -phobia, sophy, from -sophy, itis, from -itis, and ana, from -ana.
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
nouncontrarian claim
algorism
The older English word for calculation with Hindu-Arabic numerals, transmitted through French and Medieval Latin from the name al-Khwārizmī.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
algorithm
A finite or stepwise procedure, descended through medieval arithmetic vocabulary from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · adjectivehistorical form
arithmetic
The art or practice of counting and calculation; transmitted from Greek arithmos “number” through Latin and French.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
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 Norse verbdossier summary
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 ↗nouncontrarian claim
muscle
A body tissue or organ whose English name descends through French from Latin musculus, a diminutive of mūs “mouse.”
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
چای
Persian čāy, derived from Chinese ch’a in Encyclopaedia Iranica, with Persian awareness reported by the eleventh century but the adoption mechanism still unknown.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗026
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
algorism
calculation with Hindu-Arabic numerals; an arithmetic rule or procedure
- DATE
- early 13th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old French / Indo-European
algorisme / augorisme
the art of reckoning with Hindu-Arabic numerals
- DATE
- Old French, 12th–14th centuries
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
algorisme / augrim
arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic numerals
- DATE
- 14th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Medieval Latin / Indo-European
algorismus
arithmetic; computation with Hindu-Arabic numerals
- DATE
- 12th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Old French / Indo-European
arsmetique / arismatike
arithmetic or reckoning
- DATE
- Old French and Anglo-French, 12th century onward
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Anglo-French / Indo-European
disme / dime
a tenth part; tithe
- DATE
- Anglo-French, c. 1066–1500
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0314
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 7
openprobableposition text
Does the English record begin in the 13th or 14th century?
The reviewed reports differ. Etymonline gives an early-thirteenth-century algorism; Merriam-Webster gives a fourteenth-century first-known-use horizon.
openprobableposition text
Did English algorism arrive through French or directly from Medieval Latin?
The sources preserve both channels. Merriam-Webster names Middle French and Medieval Latin; Etymonline emphasizes Old French from Medieval Latin.
openprobableposition text
What exactly resembled a mouse?
The naming may refer to the shape of a muscle, a tendon, or movement visible beneath the skin; the reviewed sources do not select one mechanism as secure.
openproposedposition text
Why forty?
Religious symbolism, inherited medical theory, logistics, and observation have all been proposed; no single motivation is treated as proven here.
openboundaryposition text
When and how did Persian adopt čāy?
The exact date and mechanism remain unknown. Iranica derives the word from Chinese ch’a but explicitly says the adoption event is uncertain.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was algorithm the original form and algorism a corruption?
No. Algorism is older. Algorithm is the later altered form, with its th commonly explained through Greek arithmos or arithmetic influence.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is fiásk in Skírnismál 33 a separate verb?
No on the reviewed evidence. Cleasby, Zoëga, and Fritzner classify the reflexive under fjá, and the teaching text preserves þik skal Freyr fiásk.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 7
RANK 7GRADE Aranked reveal
Nice crossed from ignorance to approval.
Latin nescius “ignorant” became foolish or wanton, then fastidious and precise, and finally pleasant or kind.
RANK 14GRADE Aranked reveal
Arithmetic put the “ithm” into algorithm without becoming its ancestor.
Arithmetic carries Greek arithmos “number.” Algorithm carries al-Khwārizmī's name; arithmos influenced its spelling, not its genealogy.
RANK 73GRADE Acontrarian claim
Algorithm is the altered version; algorism came first.
The word began in al-Khwārizmī's geographic name. Greek arithmos later helped put “th” into algorithm without becoming its ancestor.
RANK 140GRADE Aranked reveal
A dime is literally a tenth.
The coin name reuses a medieval tenth-part word from Anglo-French and Latin decima. It sits in the same deep numeral family as decimal, decimate, December, and inherited English ten.
RANK 147GRADE Aranked reveal
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 172GRADE Aranked reveal
A muscle was a “little mouse.”
Latin musculus is a diminutive of mūs “mouse.” The derivation is secure; the exact resemblance mechanism remains qualified.
RANK 190GRADE Aranked reveal
Algorithm began as a person's geographic name.
Al-Khwārizmī—“the man from Khwārizm”—became Medieval Latin arithmetic, then modern procedure.
046
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary12 CLAIM LINKS
Algorism — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
Algorism — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly article5 CLAIM LINKS
A Note on the Word “Shaman” in Old Turkic
Peter Zieme / 2008
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical text edition5 CLAIM LINKS
Teaching Texts — Skírnismál
Skaldic Project editors
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly article4 CLAIM LINKS
Los mapuchismos en el DRAE
Gilberto Sánchez Cabezas / 2010
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly book4 CLAIM LINKS
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination
Andrei A. Znamenski / 2007
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗053
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Middle English lexicographic first-use record for algorism
algorisme / augrim / algorithm / 14th century
Algorism — Word Historyreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster source-reported English record
algorism / algorism / 14th century
Algorism — Word Historywitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Skírnismál 33
fjá / fjá / Old Norse normalized poetic text; source-reported
Teaching Texts — Skírnismálreporting 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.