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 LOCAL3 source sections across 2 headwords matching “S”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
SEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Abbreviation.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗SEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
From the first letter of set and of stage, two fundamental concepts of the theory.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗sEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Abbreviations.
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
nounheadword prefix
salary
Fixed compensation, inherited through French from a Latin term associated with salt.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verb · adjectiveheadword prefix
salt
Common salt and the wider family of saline substances and figurative savor; an inherited Germanic word in a deep Indo-European salt family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounheadword prefix
sauna
The English name of a Finnish steam bath, borrowed from Finnish sauna; its deeper Finnic history is secure enough to reconstruct, while a proposed ancient Germanic source remains actively qualified.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounheadword prefix
science
Systematic knowledge today; inherited through French from Latin scientia, a much broader word for knowledge, awareness, and understanding.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb, adjectiveheadword prefix
select
To choose or mark out from a group, borrowed from Latin selectus and seligere, literally gathering apart.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounheadword prefix
shah
The Persian title for a king or sovereign, borrowed into English in the sixteenth century.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounheadword prefix
shaman
English shaman, recorded by 1698, is ultimately from Evenki šamān. European scholarship later generalized one Siberian term across many unrelated spiritual traditions.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectiveheadword prefix
sincere
Genuine, honest, and free from pretense; borrowed from a Latin adjective of uncertain origin.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjective · adverbheadword prefix
ստոյգ
The classical Armenian word for true, certain, real, or genuine, compared by Indo-European etymologists with the Greek true-word family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivehistorical-form prefix
candid
Open or frank in modern English, inherited through French and Latin from a family of brightness and whiteness.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical-form prefix
candor
Frankness or honest expression, historically a word for brightness, radiance, whiteness, and unstained purity.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb · nounhistorical-form prefix
check
To verify, restrain, mark, or issue a bank draft today; a word whose oldest English history begins with a threatened king in chess.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*(s)kend-
to shine or make shine
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European prehistory
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Proto-Finnic / Uralic
*sakna
sauna; proposed earlier stove reference
- DATE
- Proto-Finnic reconstruction
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*saltom
salt
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic prehistory
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*set-eu-o-
having or containing true order; real
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European adjectival formation, proposed
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*set-u-
true; real; in true order
- DATE
- prehistoric
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 12
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*setu-mo-
true, real
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European formation, proposed
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 7
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*skei-
cut, split; proposed source of a discern > know development
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European prehistory
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 7
Palaeo-Germanic / Indo-European
*stagh-ná-
pile or stack; proposed source of a stone-pile stove term
- DATE
- Palaeo-Germanic reconstruction
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*stéu-gho-
real; certain
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European Armenian preform, proposed
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*séh₂l-
salt
- DATE
- c. 4500–2500 BCE
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Anglo-French / Indo-European
salarie / salaire
compensation, payment
- DATE
- medieval
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
salary
fixed regular compensation
- DATE
- 13th c.–today
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openspeculativeword prefix
What was the original salt connection?
Unknown. A salt allowance, purchase money, and euphemistic honorarium have all been proposed without decisive evidence.
openproposedword prefix
Is the PIE salt root written *sal- or *séh₂l-?
Both appear in the reviewed references at different representational resolutions. SET-U reuses *séh₂l- as the canonical dossier node and records *sal- as an alternative notation, not a second word.
openproposedword prefix
Is Finnish sauna ultimately an ancient Germanic loan?
Petri Kallio proposes Proto-Finnic *sakna as an ancient borrowing from Palaeo-Germanic *stagh-ná-, with pile or stack developing through stone-pile stove to sauna. The proposal has support but remains disputed.
openproposedword prefix
Does Latin scīre securely descend from *skei- “cut, split”?
No single analysis is secure. A discern-from-separating bridge is plausible, but the formation and semantic development remain disputed.
openproposedword prefix
Is the deepest root of xšāyaθiyā settled?
No. Merriam-Webster publishes the traditional *tkeH- comparison and records a materially different LIV derivation from *h₃ekʷ-.
openproposedword prefix
Does Evenki šamān securely descend from Sanskrit śramaṇa?
The resemblance and Central Asian transmission routes have motivated a hypothesis, but direct evidence connecting the Buddhist term to the Evenki word remains insufficient.
openproposedword prefix
A secure alternative
Not yet. The Latin word is clear, but its formation has attracted competing proposals.
openproposedword prefix
Is Armenian ստոյգ an uncontested cognate of ἔτυμος and ἐτεός?
It is a published comparison that strengthens the *set-u- analysis, but the exact Armenian preform and common-base morphology remain proposed.
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Were soldiers paid in salt?
No ancient source supports the familiar claim. Pliny notes only an undefined connection between salt and military honors or payments.
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Does the salt relationship prove soldiers were paid in salt?
No. Salt and salary belong to the same comparative salt family, but the real lexical kinship does not establish the viral literal-payment story.
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Did science always mean modern natural science?
No. Its earliest English and Latin histories center on knowledge, learning, awareness, and branches of knowledge.
resolvedestablishedword prefix
Is select descended from English lecture or lesson?
No. The English words are cousins. Select comes from Latin selectus and seligere; lecture and lesson take other Latin formations that independently reach legere.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
RANK 11GRADE Aranked-word prefix
It was never humanity’s universal ancient name for spiritual practitioners.
English globalized a specific Evenki term through European scholarship and applied it to many unrelated traditions.
RANK 92GRADE Aranked-word prefix
Science originally meant knowledge.
Before the modern natural-science center, science could mean knowledge or an organized branch of learning. A directly inspected 1704 witness still prints that broader institutional sense.
RANK 143GRADE Aranked-word prefix
Salary is truly salt's cousin—and the famous story is still false.
Salt and salary meet in the inherited salt family. Real kinship does not prove Roman soldiers received ordinary wages in literal salt.
RANK 151GRADE Aranked-word prefix
The king is still hiding inside check.
English shah directly borrows the Persian royal title. A much longer route through chess vocabulary carries that same king-word into English check and its later restraint, verification, and banking senses.
RANK 184GRADE Aranked-word prefix
Roman soldiers were not paid in salt.
The salt relationship is real. The viral payroll story is not.
RANK 187GRADE Aranked-word prefix
It never meant “without wax.”
Latin sincerus is real; sine cera is beautiful nonsense.
RANK 196GRADE Branked-word prefix
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 208GRADE A-ranked-word prefix
To select is to gather apart.
Latin seligere combines se- “apart” with legere “gather, select.” The same gathering verb sits behind lecture, lesson, legend, and collect.
RANK 1GRADE Acontrarian claim
A stranger became both guest and enemy.
The reciprocal outsider behind guest and host also became Latin hostis, “enemy.”
RANK 2GRADE Acontrarian claim
Truth began with firmness and fidelity.
Before truth centered factual correspondence, its family named what was firm, faithful, and steadfast.
RANK 3GRADE Aranked reveal
Robot named forced labor before machinery.
The machine word begins in Czech robota: compulsory labor, corvée, or drudgery.
RANK 4GRADE Acontrarian claim
Humility is an earth-and-lowness metaphor.
Latin humus “ground” produced humilis “low,” then humilitās “lowness,” before the moral virtue.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary35 CLAIM LINKS
Svenska Akademiens ordbok — FIENDE
Svenska Akademiens ordboksredaktion / 1924
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗research article17 CLAIM LINKS
Notes on Gothic Forms — Hatan : hatjan “to hate”
Albert Morey Sturtevant / 1954
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗contemporary dictionary15 CLAIM LINKS
Svensk ordbok — fiende
Svenska Akademiens ordboksredaktion / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗comparative database12 CLAIM LINKS
Proto-Germanic *xatiz, *xatōn-, -ēn- and *xatjan-
StarLing database editors
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Die gotische Bibel — Wörterbuch entry hatis
Wilhelm Streitberg / 1910
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
ἔτυμος — A Greek-English Lexicon
Henry George Liddell · Robert Scott · Henry Stuart Jones / 1940
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly lexicon7 CLAIM LINKS
rēx — Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary
Charlton T. Lewis · Charles Short · Scaife ATLAS Editors / 1879
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
ἐτήτυμος — A Greek-English Lexicon
Henry George Liddell · Robert Scott · Henry Stuart Jones / 1940
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical text edition5 CLAIM LINKS
Teaching Texts — Skírnismál
Skaldic Project editors
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗digital critical edition4 CLAIM LINKS
Homer, Iliad 1.445 — πολύστονα κήδεʼ
Homer · Tufts University digital text editors
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly lexicon4 CLAIM LINKS
Humilitas — Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary
Charlton T. Lewis · Charles Short · Scaife ATLAS Editors / 1879
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly article4 CLAIM LINKS
Los mapuchismos en el DRAE
Gilberto Sánchez Cabezas / 2010
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗0512
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The first edition of the Académie française dictionary prints SINCERE as a headword and opens with the senses true and frank.
sincère / sincere / 1694
Le dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Tome 2 (M–Z), première éditionattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The SYSTEM entry in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses Science for an organized branch of knowledge when defining a system of philosophy.
science / science / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
A banking-exchange passage in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses Salary for the banker’s compensation.
salary / salary / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s NOTES in Musick entry describes a fixed group of six select syllables formerly used to distinguish degrees of sound.
select / select / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Latin literary and epigraphic record
salārium / salary / Roman imperial period
Logeion: salariumattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster source-reported Old English record
sealt / salt / before the 12th century
Salt — Definition, Word History, and First Known Useattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use report for science
science / cience / science / 14th century
Science — Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use record
sincere / sincere / 1533 first known use
Sincere — Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster first-known-use record for select
select / select / First known adjective use reported as 1565
Select — Definition and Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use report for shah
shah / shah / 1566
Shah — Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use record for shaman
shaman / shaman / 1698
Shaman — Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use record for sauna
sauna / sauna / 1881
Sauna — Word Historyattested-form prefix / 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.