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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 LOCAL3 source sections across 1 headword matching “Sex”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
sexEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sek-der. Proto-Indo-European *séks-u-sder. Proto-Italic *seksus Proto-Indo-European *sek- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *sékh₁yeti Proto-Italic *sekaō Latin secō Latin secāre? Latin sexusder. Old French sexeder. Middle English sexe English sex From Middle English sexe (“sex [distinction between male and female] and gender”), from Old French sexe (“genitals; gender”), from Latin sexus (“gender; gender traits; males or females; genitals”), from Proto-Italic *seksus, from Proto-Indo-European *séksus, from *sek- (“to cut, cut off, sever”), thus meaning "section, division" (into male and female). Displaced native Old English hād (“sex, gender”). Usage for women influenced by Middle French le sexe (“women”) (attested in 1580). Usage for third and additional sexes calqued from French troisième sexe, referring to masculine women in 1817 and homosexuals in 1847. First used by Lord Byron and others in English in reference to Catholic clergy. Usage for sexual intercourse first attested in 1899 (in the writings of H. G. Wells).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗sexEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sek-der. Proto-Indo-European *séks-u-sder. Proto-Italic *seksus Proto-Indo-European *sek- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *sékh₁yeti Proto-Italic *sekaō Latin secō Latin secāre? Latin sexusder. Old French sexeder. Middle English sexe English sex From Middle English sexe (“sex [distinction between male and female] and gender”), from Old French sexe (“genitals; gender”), from Latin sexus (“gender; gender traits; males or females; genitals”), from Proto-Italic *seksus, from Proto-Indo-European *séksus, from *sek- (“to cut, cut off, sever”), thus meaning "section, division" (into male and female). Displaced native Old English hād (“sex, gender”). Usage for women influenced by Middle French le sexe (“women”) (attested in 1580). Usage for third and additional sexes calqued from French troisième sexe, referring to masculine women in 1817 and homosexuals in 1847. First used by Lord Byron and others in English in reference to Catholic clergy. Usage for sexual intercourse first attested in 1899 (in the writings of H. G. Wells).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗sexEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
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 →015
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun and adjectivedossier summary
female
A sex-class term borrowed through French from Latin fēmella, a diminutive of fēmina, with its English spelling later remodeled under male.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
girl
A female child or young woman; in Middle English the word could denote a child or young person of either sex.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · adjectivehistorical form
kind
An inherited English word whose noun history runs through nature, birth, class, and family while its adjective history runs through what is natural, native, fitting, and only later benevolent.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun and adjectivedossier summary
male
A sex-class term borrowed through Anglo-French from Latin masculus, a diminutive formation on mās.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
man
A human being and, in later dominant use, an adult male human; inherited through Old English mann from the Germanic human-person family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗025
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Old English / Indo-European
cynd / gecynd
nature, kind, manner, condition, origin, generation, offspring, or sex
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
female
of or relating to the female sex; a female individual
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
girle
child or young person of either sex; girl
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
kīnde
essential nature, origin, family, species, class, sex, manner, or the created order
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
male
of or relating to the male sex; a male individual
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
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WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can Freund historically refer to a woman?
Yes. Grimm records older and contextual uses of the masculine noun for female referents. Grammatical gender and referent sex are not identical.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did Middle English girl mean only a female child?
No. Girle could denote a child or young person of either sex and could even be specified as a boy.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did Old English man mean only an adult male?
No. Its principal older sense was human being or person; wer and wīf could mark the sex distinction.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 1
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.
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BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “sex.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “sex.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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