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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 “Retain” 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 →Retain
No extractable etymology was found for this exact spelling. Open the original dictionary entry ↗
Read the complete entry and references ↗ · Contribute a cited dossier
013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun · adjectivecontrarian claim
arithmetic
The art or practice of counting and calculation; transmitted from Greek arithmos “number” through Latin and French.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Gothic masculine nd-stem common noundossier summary
fijands
A Gothic masculine nd-stem noun conventionally glossed enemy. Project Wulfila currently exposes 26 candidates: three verified noun assignments, two further noun-only assignments, and 21 surface forms also listed under the living verb fijan. Ayora Estevan explains the collision diachronically: Proto-Germanic had already lexicalized the present-participial *fi(j)and- as enemy, while Gothic retained productive one-who-hates participles beside the noun. The five noun-only candidates use fiand, fijands, fijande, and fijandis; all five were inspected in Codex Argenteus facsimiles.
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 ↗020
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
No reviewed record in this collection contains “retain.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
0315
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
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.
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.
openprobableposition text
Was emotion first used in the 1570s or exactly 1579?
Etymonline gives the decade; Merriam-Webster gives 1579. These are compatible levels of precision, not proof of one first utterance.
openprobableposition text
Is fijands just an ordinary Gothic present participle?
No single category covers the evidence. Ayora Estevan derives the enemy noun from a Proto-Germanic lexicalized participle while also showing that Gothic retained productive present-participial uses of the same formation.
openprobableposition text
Is Heliand 4915 unambiguously an enemy noun?
No. The separate hėttiand entry establishes the lexicalized noun analysis, while the verb entry retains the same readings as participial evidence. The surviving phrase alone does not erase the overlap.
openboundaryposition text
Can the Greek-to-Latin adjective transfer be dated to one event?
Not from the reviewed sources. Merriam-Webster establishes Greek etymologikos behind Latin etymologicus, while CNRTL documents late Latin use in Diomedes; neither identifies one precisely dated borrowing event.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was -logy a freestanding ancestral word?
No evidence reviewed here supports that representation. Merriam-Webster calls -logy a noun combining form and explains that a hyphenated entry is a word element forming part of a compound; the historical forms are likewise evidenced within larger formations. The unrelated adjective logy “sluggish” has a different history.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was Gaulish -rīx an attested freestanding word?
No freestanding token is established by the reviewed evidence. Cambridge calls it an onomastic element and Bolelli and Campanile call it the second member of compound personal names. The form is attested through those hosts, while Proto-Celtic *rīx-s is reconstructed.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can Feind refer only to a personal human enemy?
No. Duden also records hostile powers, enemy soldiers or troops, threats to a group, figurative natural enemies, and opponents of practices or causes.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does Portuguese chá disprove the sea-versus-land rule?
It disproves the rule as a universal law, not the global tendency. Portuguese merchants used a maritime route yet Portuguese retained a cha-type form.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did dairy originally name milk as a substance?
No. The earliest reviewed route names a milk-production place built on the woman responsible for the work.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is the Roman tenth-member story invented?
No. The Latin and historical punishment sense is real; the error is using etymology to ban later English meanings.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
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 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 200GRADE A-contrarian claim
The recreation word is a retained Indigenous Arctic boat name.
English kayak comes from Inuit qayaq. The broad source label is real evidence; assigning one exact Inuit donor variety would go beyond it.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “retain.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “retain.” 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.