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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 LOCAL1 source section across 1 headword matching “Mains”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
mainsEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Related to manse.
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 →0112
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun · verbdossier summary
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 ↗noundossier summary
boy
A male child or young man; Middle English also used the word for a male servant or churl, and its origin remains disputed.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbhistorical form
calculate
To determine mathematically or estimate, borrowed from a Latin family built around counting with pebbles.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
chá
The Portuguese word for tea, a European cha-type form associated with sixteenth-century Portuguese contact through Macao rather than the Dutch te-type route.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
etymology
The study of the true or original sense of a word—and of the changes that made it what it is.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbcontrarian claim
hate
An inherited Germanic hostility word whose English noun and verb histories converge imperfectly: Old English preserves both hete and hatian, Middle English may have remodeled the noun from the verb, and the proposed deeper Indo-European family remains semantically opaque.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old English weak verbdossier summary
hatian
An attested Old English verb for hating whose objects include persons, enemies, vices, and deeds. It continues a reconstructed Germanic weak verb commonly represented as *hatōjan-, but published reconstructions vary, its relationship to the noun base is derivational rather than direct word-to-word descent, and the proposed deeper Indo-European route remains semantically opaque.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old English masculine noundossier summary
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.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Saxon masculine i-stem noundossier summary
heti
Old Saxon heti is an attested noun, not a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form. Köbler prints the normalized citation form hėti* with a trailing asterisk, then gives three cited lexical loci whose inflections produce five witness readings: accusative singular heti at Heliand 1322 in manuscripts M, C, and V; dative singular heti at Genesis 60; and genitive singular hetias in the tenth-century Saxon Confession. No nominative singular appears in that inventory, but the exact surface heti is visibly written in Munich Cgm 25. The directly inspected Heliand line places the noun in the Beatitudes, where righteous people endure rîkioro manno heti endi harmquidi, powerful men's hostility or persecution and hostile speech. The Saxon Confession instead places hetias beside malice, envy, and slander among confessed wrongs. Those contexts establish a range broader than one private feeling without proving that persecution was the prehistoric root meaning. Fulk and Köbler analyze the Old Saxon comparison as an i-stem; Pfeifer describes the wider Germanic noun as an old es/os-stem, so the inherited morphological account remains public rather than falsely harmonized.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
kayak
An English borrowing recorded in 1757 from Inuit qayaq, the name of the Indigenous Arctic watercraft; the reviewed English source does not identify one specific Inuit language variety.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
moose
English moose, recorded by 1603, is of Algonquian origin. Related Massachusett and Eastern Abenaki forms are secure, but the reviewed evidence does not uniquely identify one direct donor variety.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
person
An individual human being, historically from Latin persōna, whose older semantic field includes theatrical mask, character, and role.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗021
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
0323
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openproposedposition text
Is the deepest root *leǵ- or *sleǵ-?
The traditional *leǵ- reconstruction remains widely represented, while published scholarship argues that the gather or collect root began with *s. The graph preserves both analyses.
openproposedposition text
Does Freund securely descend from exactly *prī-?
The comparison is published on the shared friend-family route but remains proposed and less secure than the Germanic formation.
openboundaryposition text
Can aguacate be securely pushed deeper than āhuacatl?
Not from the reviewed sources. The institutional dictionaries reach the Nahuatl word and its historical witnesses but do not establish a deeper lexical ancestor.
openproposedposition text
Is Choctaw bayuk a securely attested source of bayou?
No. An early Choctaw *bayok is plausible and accepted in a major handbook, but later bayuk is not securely attested and contraction to bók was conjectural.
openproposedposition text
Which Aboriginal language supplied boomerang?
Dharug bumarin and a Dharawal bou-mar-rang form are published candidates, but the Australian National Dictionary Centre says the exact source language remains uncertain.
openproposedposition text
Is *kad-t/si- from *kad- the only defensible deeper analysis?
No. It is a published proposal, not an attested sequence, and the wider cross-branch set remains semantically disputed.
openproposedposition text
Does calculator securely descend beyond Latin calculus to calx?
The calculator-to-calculare-to-calculus chain is established, but the traditional calculus-to-calx derivation is proposed. A possible shared Mediterranean substrate source remains a competing route.
openproposedposition text
Is Latin calculus securely a diminutive of calx?
No. Festus accepted the traditional limestone derivation, but the phonology and meanings are problematic. The edge remains proposed.
openproposedposition text
Is the deepest brightness root *kand- or *(s)kend-?
The graph preserves both published analyses. The newer Merriam-Webster route uses *(s)kend- and explains candēre through a zero-grade stative formation; the prior *kand- route remains proposed.
openprobableposition text
Did English borrow candor only through French?
French candeur is a published route, while Merriam-Webster describes the English borrowing as French and Latin. Direct learned Latin influence therefore remains visible.
openproposedposition text
Is *leǵ- the only published deepest root shape?
No. The traditional *leǵ- analysis remains widely represented, while a published *sleǵ- reconstruction challenges the initial consonant and cautions against a simple semantic tale.
openestablishedposition text
Was emoticon first used in 1987 or only by 1992?
Merriam-Webster reports first known use in 1987; Etymonline reports the word by January 1992 and quotes an August 1992 explanation.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 11
RANK 15GRADE Aranked reveal
The modern stigma of Weib is not the timeless nature of wīb.
Duden marks modern Weib increasingly discriminatory, while Old High German records preserve wīb in old-woman and wife expressions; the deeper origin remains unresolved.
RANK 24GRADE Aranked reveal
Hatred is medieval—and its -red means neither red nor “more.”
Middle English assembled hate with a dying native element for a state or condition. The compound is younger than its parts; below the secure Germanic hate family, even the celebrated PIE root remains a qualified and semantically difficult proposal.
RANK 25GRADE Aranked reveal
Hate was enemy-directed action as well as feeling in Old English.
Old English hatian could mean treating as an enemy, persecuting, or injuring; Beowulf puts the verb beside hostile deeds. The deeper claim that pursuit was the first meaning remains open, and the graph says so.
RANK 33GRADE Aranked reveal
Enemy is a fossilized hater—but lexicalization does not make every token transparent.
Project Wulfila lists 26 candidates under the Gothic enemy noun and 42 under the verb fijan; exactly 21 surface tokens belong to both inventories. Ayora Estevan explains why: Proto-Germanic had already lexicalized one who hates as enemy, while Gothic retained the productive participle. The five noun-only tokens are directly inspected; the 21-token overlap remains public instead of being counted twice as certainty.
RANK 121GRADE Aranked reveal
Wife once meant woman more broadly.
Old English wīf meant woman or wife and survives inside wīfman, the ancestor of woman; its deeper source remains uncertain.
RANK 153GRADE Aranked reveal
Trust is confidence made firm.
The likely Scandinavian noun belongs to a Germanic family of firmness and faith. Its exact Old Norse donor remains probable rather than certain.
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 174GRADE Aranked reveal
Collect almost says its Latin construction aloud.
Latin colligere joins com- with legere: gathering together. Unlike many dramatic semantic reversals, the modern English core remains strikingly close to the historical construction.
RANK 178GRADE A-ranked reveal
It is not a failed Germanic plural.
English borrowed an Algonquian animal name; Massachusett moos and Eastern Abenaki mos are related evidence, while the exact donor remains unresolved.
RANK 196GRADE Branked reveal
The Finnish icon may be an ancient import.
A published proposal derives Proto-Finnic *sakna from a reconstructed Germanic pile or stack word through the heated stone pile of an early sauna stove. The edge remains visibly disputed.
RANK 201GRADE A−ranked reveal
Chess may be a fossilized plural.
English chess comes through French plural game or piece forms. Its deeper route remains contested between the king-call šāh family and the traveling game-name šatranj.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “mains.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “mains.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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.