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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 LOCALNo exact match for “Middle” in this partial English subset. That does not mean the full research corpus—or linguistic scholarship—has no record. Check the original dictionary entry ↗
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 →Middle
No extractable etymology was found for this exact spelling. Open the original dictionary entry ↗
Read the complete entry and references ↗ · Contribute a cited dossier
0112
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun combining formhistorical form
-logy
A bound English word element used in formations involving discourse or expression and in names of doctrines, theories, sciences, and fields of study.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German masculine noundossier summary
Feind
The modern German noun for a personal, political, military, or ideological enemy or opponent. Duden derives it through Middle High German vīnt or vīant and Old High German fīand, literally the hating one; DWDS dates Old High German fīant and fījant to the eighth century and identifies the Germanic ancestor as a petrified substantivized present participle. Grimm’s dictionary independently compares Gothic fijands, Old English fēond, English fiend, Dutch vijand, and Nordic forms, while warning that its own still-deeper foam hypothesis required confirmation. The reviewed route therefore follows the inherited enemy noun to reconstructed *fi(j)and- and *fi(j)ēn-, then treats *peh₁- as proposed and stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German masculine noundossier summary
Freund
German Freund continues Middle High German vriunt and Old High German friunt. DWDS/Pfeifer, Duden, and Grimm independently analyze the inherited Germanic formation as a substantivized present participle of the verb represented by Gothic frijōn and Old English frēogan: historically a loving or favorably disposed one. The record is semantically wider than a modern close companion: the historical dictionaries also document neighbor, relative, lover, ally, supporter, patron, address, and euphemistic uses. The graph joins the High German line to the same reviewed *frijōnd- and *frī- nodes as English friend, keeps *prī- proposed, and stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German masculine noundossier summary
Hass
The modern German noun for intense aversion, rejection, or hostility toward a person, group, or institution. Duden traces Middle and Old High German haʒ to suffering, sorrow, and resentment and records the 1996 spelling change from Haß to Hass. DWDS/Pfeifer reports the Old High German noun from the eighth century and places it in the Germanic family of Old Saxon heti, Old English hete, Old Norse hatr, Gothic hatis, and related forms. Grimm’s DWB preserves a more complicated semantic record: hostile pursuit or action, anger expressed in deeds, ordinary hostile disposition, and even measured rivalry during friendly competition. The reviewed route reuses *hatiz- and the qualified *ḱh₂d-es- / *ḱeh₂d- comparison, then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
Liebe
The German noun for love, inherited through Middle and Old High German and a Germanic abstract-noun formation distinct from the immediate noun ancestry of English love.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbdossier summary
betroth
To promise in marriage; a Middle English prefixed formation built on the same historical noun that yielded truth and troth.
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 ↗Middle Irish nouncontrarian claim
cais
eDIL separates two Irish headwords written cais. The first, also recorded as caise, is explicitly explained both as love and as hate; its cited passages and glossary equations range from searc and grádh "love" to miscais and mioscais "hatred", with context deciding individual readings. One Éigse line is tentatively translated so that the same visible form occurs on both sides: "my love ... is met by hatred(?)". The question mark matters. The second eDIL headword cais means "eye" and is excluded from this semantic lineage. These records establish a remarkable lexicographic opposition, not one timeless essence, a chronology from love to hate, or proof that every occurrence belongs to one historically indivisible sense. John T. Koch compares the noun with Proto-Celtic *katsi- < *kad-t/si- and a wider *kad- family, but that ancestry and its proposed Germanic comparison remain open. eDIL itself generally supplies etymologies only selectively. No manuscript pixels were directly inspected, no earliest-use or historical-frequency claim is made, and no exact pronunciation is invented.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbcontrarian claim
feign
To invent, fabricate, make a likeness, or pretend; borrowed through Anglo-French from Latin fingere, to shape or fashion.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗English noundossier summary
fiend
An inherited English noun whose earliest recorded sense was enemy or foe, not demon. Old English fēond belonged to a Germanic lexicalized one-who-hates formation; Middle English fẹ̄nd preserved enemy, Satan, demon, possession, and monster senses across extensive spelling variation; modern fiend continues the same English line. OED’s revised 2026 entry marks the literal enemy sense obsolete after the medieval record, explains the Devil as the ultimate Enemy, and documents long-versus-short vowel competition before the long vowel became dominant by the eighteenth century. The Middle English Dictionary independently exposes 188 quotations across eight senses without claiming a complete corpus.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗English common noun and historical adjectivedossier summary
friend
English friend continues Middle English frẹ̄nd and Old English frēond, an inherited Germanic nd-stem agent noun. OED identifies cognates across West, East, and North Germanic and analyzes them as noun uses of a present participle of the Germanic base behind free; Bosworth–Toller explicitly calls Old English freónd the participle of freón, a verb meaning free or love; American Heritage independently explains the formation as originally one who loves. The historical noun later covers intimate companion, ally, supporter, relation, lover, form of address, Quaker, climbing device, and social-network contact. The graph displays a normalized *frijōnd- participial formation, Germanic *frī-, the proposed Indo-European comparison *prī-, and then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old English strong masculine nd-agent noundossier summary
fēond
An Old English enemy, foe, and Devil noun inherited from the Germanic lexicalized present-participial formation *fi(j)and-. OED’s revised 2026 entry treats fēond and fīond as dialectal Old English forms, documents i-mutated fīend and fȳnd inside the inherited nd-stem inflection, and traces the word through a highly variable Middle English record into modern fiend. Bosworth–Toller supplies the Old English paradigm and examples; the Middle English Dictionary independently reports 188 quotations across eight senses. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 180v was directly inspected at Beowulf 2289, where feondes modifies fotlast, the foe’s footprint.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Middle Chinese (reconstructed reading) / Sino-Tibetan
*drae
tea; name of a plant
- DATE
- Middle Chinese reconstruction
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 5
Proto-Celtic / Indo-European
*katsi-
a proposed Celtic formation compared with Middle Irish cais and Old Welsh cas
- DATE
- proposed Proto-Celtic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*xatjanan
a reconstructed Germanic weak verb represented by Gothic hatjan, Old English hettan, and Middle High German hetzen
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 3
Middle English / Indo-European
-logie
bound learned element visible in words such as etimologie
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old French / Indo-European
-logie
learned noun-forming element transmitted into Middle English
- DATE
- Old French
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
-rede / -reden
a state, condition, quality, status, estimation, rule, or relation to X
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Middle English / Indo-European
Decembre
the last month of the year
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
adverbe
adverb
- DATE
- Middle English, 15th century
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle French / Indo-European
adverbe
adverb
- DATE
- Middle French
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
algorisme / augrim
arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic numerals
- DATE
- 14th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Middle English / Indo-European
arsmetike / arsmetrik
arithmetic or the art of computation
- DATE
- Middle English, mid-13th–15th century
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
bi-/be-
prefix used in bitrouthen
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openproposedposition text
Do Celtic cais and Greek κῆδος prove that love and hate share one root?
No. They belong to a disputed wider comparison. Middle Irish cais carries a striking love-and-hatred field, but that does not make German Liebe an ancestor or cognate of Hass.
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
Is betroth built on truth or troth?
The historical base is Middle English trouth or trouthe, where the modern truth and troth spellings were not yet cleanly separated; mapping it to only one modern headword overstates the evidence.
openspeculativeposition text
When did fēogan cease to be an ordinary verb?
The reviewed evidence does not establish one last-use date or a complete Middle English continuation. The trail therefore stops at the Old English written record instead of inventing an extinction year.
openproposedposition text
Does girl have a securely known Old English ancestor?
No. American Heritage labels the origin unknown; the Middle English Dictionary marks *gyrela and a gierela garment comparison as uncertain.
openprobableposition text
Did Old Norse shape the Middle English forms?
Old Norse gestr may have reinforced the Middle English initial g, but the English word is fundamentally inherited from Old English and Germanic.
openproposedposition text
Did Middle English hate directly continue Old English hete?
Possibly, but the immediate route is disputed. American Heritage gives direct noun descent; Merriam-Webster says the noun was probably derived from haten and replaced hete.
openproposedposition text
Do Celtic cais and cas make the deep Indo-European route secure?
Not by themselves. Koch publishes Proto-Celtic *katsi- and a wider *kad- comparison, but Middle Irish cais itself carries both love and hatred, and Liberman challenges whether several non-Germanic comparisons form one transparent family.
openprobableposition text
Did Gothic hatjan mean pursue because German hetzen later did?
Not in the surviving Gothic clause. Matthew 5:44 uses hatjandam for people who hate; Middle High German hetzen develops pursuit and hounding senses in a daughter branch. The formal comparison does not make every branch share every meaning.
openproposedposition text
Did the noun hate directly continue Old English hete?
The inherited noun is part of the history, but the immediate path is disputed. American Heritage presents Middle English hate from Old English hete; Merriam-Webster says the Middle English noun was probably derived from haten and replaced hete.
openproposedposition text
Did Middle English hate directly continue Old English hete?
Possibly, but the immediate route is disputed. American Heritage gives direct descent; Merriam-Webster says the noun was probably derived from haten and replaced hete.
openproposedposition text
Did hettan mean hate, pursue, attack, or persecute?
No single gloss exhausts the record. Orel glosses Old English hettan “hate” but Middle High German hetzen “pursue”; the attested enemy forms encode an antagonist, and Liberman argues for pursuit or persecution as an older concrete history.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
RANK 16GRADE Aranked reveal
Humiliation is evidenced in English before humiliate.
Chaucer’s Middle English humiliacioun occurs in a humility passage; Merriam-Webster reports the English verb humiliate only circa 1534. Christian Latin and French preserve lowering, abasement, mortification, and self-humbling before current definitions center degradation, disgrace, and shame.
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 28GRADE Aranked reveal
German hostile agitation still carries a hound’s chase.
The medieval verb drives dogs after quarry. The same directed-force construction is soon applied to people: Middle High German records set people against one another, and Early New High German polemic sets rulers against Christians. Modern political hetzen is therefore not merely “hate” verbalized; it inherits a grammar of making another actor pursue, pressure, or attack.
RANK 35GRADE Aranked reveal
A fiend was an enemy before it was a demon.
OED’s revised history starts with enemy or foe and explains the Devil as the ultimate Enemy. The English noun continues Old English fēond, itself inherited from a Germanic lexicalized one-who-hates formation. Middle English then preserves enemy, Satan, demon, possession, and monster senses together before the literal enemy sense becomes obsolete.
RANK 36GRADE Aranked reveal
German Feind is English fiend’s undemonic cousin: both fossilize one who hates.
Duden, DWDS/Pfeifer, and Grimm independently carry Feind through Middle and Old High German to a substantivized hating participle. OED places English fiend on the collateral Old English branch. German retained the ordinary enemy or opponent at its semantic center; English turned the cognate toward Devil, demon, and vicious person.
RANK 53GRADE Aranked reveal
Freund fossilizes the loving one—but it does not come from Freude.
Pfeifer, Duden, and Grimm route Freund through Middle High German vriunt and Old High German friunt to a substantivized Germanic present participle of the love verb. Grimm also makes the structural contrast explicit: Feind is built on a different hate verb. The unveiling is grammatical rather than mystical—Freund and Feind look like a moral pair because both preserve agent-noun architecture, not because one ancient root split into love and hate.
RANK 60GRADE A-ranked reveal
German hassen has an action buried under the feeling.
Duden says Middle High German haʒʒen and Old High German haʒʒēn / haʒʒōn formerly also meant pursue. Grimm’s DWB goes further: it calls hostile pursuit or persecution the original sense, reports Old High German following or pursuit alignments and Behaim persecution contexts, then explicitly describes the later sense as more about hostile disposition than hostile deeds. Modern Duden centers hatred and strong aversion. The contrast is real; the one certain prehistoric scene is not.
RANK 88GRADE Aranked reveal
Mussel and muscle were once spelling twins.
Middle English could spell the shellfish muscle. The shellfish and anatomical words ultimately belong to Latin’s mouse-derived musculus family, though the naming resemblance itself is not fully recoverable.
RANK 101GRADE Aranked reveal
To betroth is to bind by one’s truth or troth.
Middle English bitrouthen visibly combines bi-/be- with trouth, the historical fidelity noun before modern truth and troth were cleanly separated.
RANK 102GRADE Aranked reveal
A truce was grammatically plural.
Modern singular truce continues Middle English trewes, the plural of an agreement noun from Old English trēow “fidelity.” A ceasefire is historically a set of pledged terms.
RANK 122GRADE Aranked reveal
Girl could once refer to a boy.
Middle English girle could denote a child of either sex; later English narrowed it toward a female child or young woman.
RANK 134GRADE Aranked reveal
Feign once included making, not only pretending.
Middle English feynen could mean make, fabricate, or make a likeness as well as dissemble or pretend, continuing the fingere shaping family.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary11 CLAIM LINKS
Middle English Dictionary — fẹ̄nd, n.
Middle English Dictionary Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary7 CLAIM LINKS
Middle English Dictionary — frẹ̄nd, n.
Middle English Dictionary editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
Middle English Dictionary: etimologie n.
Middle English Dictionary Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary2 CLAIM LINKS
Middle English Dictionary: love n.
Middle English Dictionary Editors
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary12 CLAIM LINKS
girle — Middle English Dictionary
Middle English Dictionary Editors / 2026
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
-rē̆de(n suffix — Middle English Dictionary
Robert E. Lewis et al. · Frances McSparran et al. / 2001
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary4 CLAIM LINKS
Kin n. — Middle English Dictionary
Robert E. Lewis et al. · Frances McSparran et al. / 2001
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary4 CLAIM LINKS
Kīnd(e adj. — Middle English Dictionary
Robert E. Lewis et al. · Frances McSparran et al. / 2001
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
King n. — Middle English Dictionary
Robert E. Lewis et al. · Frances McSparran et al. / 2001
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
Kīnde n. — Middle English Dictionary
Robert E. Lewis et al. · Frances McSparran et al. / 2001
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗digital corpus2 CLAIM LINKS
English prose works of Richard Rolle: a selection
Carl Horstman, editor · Middle English Compendium Editors / 1896
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary2 CLAIM LINKS
Humblen — Middle English Dictionary entry and citations
Middle English Dictionary Editors / 2026
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗0512
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Middle English lexical record
logic / logic / 12th century
Logic — Word Historywitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle English textual corpus
love / luve / love / Middle English period
Middle English Dictionary: love n.witness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Middle English lexical record
intelligence / intelligence / 14th century
Intelligence — Word Historywitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Middle English lexicographic first-use record for algorism
algorisme / augrim / algorithm / 14th century
Algorism — Word Historywitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle English Dictionary citation to Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale
humilite / humility / circa 1390 reported quotation
Humblen — Middle English Dictionary entry and citationswitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle English Dictionary lexical record for king
king / kyng / king / Middle English dictionary record
King n. — Middle English Dictionarywitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle English Dictionary suffix record for kinrede
kinrede / kindrede / kindred / Middle English dictionary record
-rē̆de(n suffix — Middle English Dictionarywitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle Franconian rhymed text, recension B
fīunt / fīunt / 1151–1200
Oudnederlands Woordenboek — fīuntwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Middle Franconian rhymed text, recension A
fīunt / fīunt / 1151–1200
Oudnederlands Woordenboek — fīuntwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Ormulum kin quotation in the Middle English Dictionary
kin / kyn / kun / kin / circa 1175 quotation reported by the Middle English Dictionary
Kin n. — Middle English Dictionaryreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Bodleian Homilies cynde quotation in the Middle English Dictionary
kīnde / kind / circa 1175 quotation reported by the Middle English Dictionary
Kīnde n. — Middle English Dictionaryreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Van Veen and Van der Sijs early Middle Dutch form inventory
vrient / vriend / 1201–1250, source-reported
Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands — vriendreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗06
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