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 LOCALNo exact match for “Strain” 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.
Chambers (1908)
1908- StrainEnglish · e-38700-3281
Strain, strān, v.t. to stretch tight: to draw with force: to exert to the utmost: to injure by overtasking: to make tight: to constrain, make uneasy or unnatural: to press to one's self, to embrace: to pass through a fil
Read the full source record → - StrainEnglish · e-38700-3282
Strain, strān, n. race, stock, generation: descent: natural tendency, any admixture or element in one's character.—n. Strain′ing-beam, a tie-beam uniting the tops of the queen-posts. [M. E. streen—A.S. gestréon, gain; co
Read the full source record →
Strain
The dictionary could not be reached right now. Open the original dictionary entry ↗
Read the complete entry and references ↗ · Contribute a cited dossier
012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounhistorical form
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 ↗verb · noundossier summary
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 ↗023
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Latin / Indo-European
bōia
collar or yoke used to restrain criminals
- DATE
- Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
check
verify, restrain, inspect, mark; a bank draft
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
chek / chekke
a chess warning; assault, adverse event, restraint
- DATE
- 14th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
036
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
openproposedposition text
Does boy securely descend from a word for ox hide?
No. American Heritage offers a possible chain through a fettered person, fetter, Latin restraint collar, and Greek ox hide; Oxford labels the origin unknown.
openestablishedposition text
Can one exact Old Norse pronunciation be recovered?
No. Orthographic forms and comparative analysis constrain the history, but no sound recording or complete transition series exists.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did check begin with verification?
No. The oldest sequence starts with chess, then stop and restraint; verification and banking are later semantic branches.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
RANK 69GRADE Aranked reveal
Your bank check began as a threat to a king.
Persian šāh becomes a chess warning, French eschec, and English check. Stop and restraint later produce verification and the anti-forgery counterfoil behind the bank draft.
RANK 151GRADE Aranked reveal
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 202GRADE Branked reveal
Boy may reach ox—but only through a disputed trail.
One proposal runs from a fettered person through a shackle, restraint collar, ox hide, and ox; another major reference says the origin is unknown.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “strain.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
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.