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 LOCAL2 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Thing”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
ThingEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
thingEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tenk-? Proto-Indo-European *tenkóm Proto-Germanic *þingą Proto-West Germanic *þing Old English þing Middle English thing English thing From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing, from Proto-Germanic *þingą. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Ding (“thing”), West Frisian ting, ding (“thing”), Dutch ding (“thing”), German Low German Ding (“thing”), German Ding (“thing”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ting (“thing”), Faroese ting (“parliament, assembly”), Icelandic þing (“congress, assembly”), Scots hing (“thing”). The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin rēs, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Danish ting, Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.
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.
Chambers (1908)
1908- ThingEnglish · e-38700-4900
Thing, thing, n. an inanimate object: a living being (in tenderness or in contempt): an event: a part: (pl.) clothes, wraps.—ns. Thing′iness, reality, objectivity: disposition to take a materialistic view of things; Thin
Read the full source record → - ThingEnglish · e-38700-4901
Thing, ting, n. a parliament, or a court of law, in Scandinavian countries. [Ice. thing, an assembly.]
Read the full source record →
0112
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounhistorical form
adverb
A grammatical class commonly modifying verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, phrases, clauses, or sentences; the English term continues Latin adverbium.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbhistorical form
boomerang
An Aboriginal Australian borrowing recorded in English by 1824. Dharug and Dharawal forms have been proposed, but the Australian National Dictionary Centre says the exact source language remains uncertain.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
candidate
A person seeking selection or office; ultimately the Roman office-seeker dressed in a bright white toga.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivedossier summary
chthonic
Of the underworld or of things in and under the earth; a learned English continuation of the Greek earth family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjective · nounhistorical form
conscious
Aware, awake, or deliberate; borrowed directly from Latin conscius in the knowing-family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
fiction
Invented narrative, imaginative creation, pretense, or legal assumption; borrowed through French from Latin fictio, an action of shaping, molding, or feigning.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Danish common-gender noundossier summary
fjende
Modern Danish fjende is the ordinary noun for a person, state, force, ideological opponent, or figurative thing that harms something else. Den Danske Ordbog derives it from Old Norse fjándi, compares German Feind, and identifies the older formation as a present participle of a verb corresponding to Old Norse fjá, to hate or persecute. Gammeldansk Ordbog records fiende broadly from 1100–1300. Ordbog over det danske Sprog preserves fiende, finde, and related spellings, an ordinary enemy sense, military and animal uses, abstract threats, and a special religious Devil branch. Holbergordbog shows that Fiende could still scan as either three syllables or two, alongside Fiænde, Finde, Fînde, and clipped Fiend. The word is therefore a grammatical fossil, not a current psychological definition: a lexicalized one-who-hates became the ordinary Danish enemy noun and accumulated broad contextual work. The current pronunciations are dictionary records, not retrojections into medieval Danish. No manuscript or print object is claimed as directly inspected.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Norse masculine nounhistorical form
fjándi
Old Norse fjándi is a masculine noun whose inherited shape still exposes a prehistoric agent formation. Cleasby and Vigfússon compare Gothic fiands, Old English feond, German Feind, Swedish fiende, and Danish fjende, identify the nd as participial, and gloss the older formation as properly a hater. They then distinguish the ordinary enemy sense from a post-Christian fiend development. The University of Copenhagen Dictionary of Old Norse Prose supplies 222 citations and six semantic zones: enemy or opponent; devil, monster, or demon; evil spirit; pagan god; the Devil or Satan; and a derogatory term for a hated or bewitched person, animal, or object. Lexicon Poeticum independently exposes 49 poetic records, including source-reported tenth-century enemy uses and later Christian fiend uses, while warning that its concordance and dates require checking. The noun therefore does not possess one timeless true meaning: an inherited lexicalized hater became an ordinary enemy word, and the branch later accumulated several demonic and derogatory senses. The displayed pronunciation is an editorial normalized approximation, not recorded historical audio. No underlying manuscript object is claimed as directly inspected in this dossier.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗German weak verbdossier summary
hassen
The modern German weak verb for feeling hatred toward a person or for strongly disliking a thing or action. Duden traces it through Middle High German haʒʒen and Old High German haʒʒēn / haʒʒōn and adds that the older verb also meant pursue. Grimm’s DWB makes the semantic contrast explicit: it calls hostile pursuit or persecution the original sense and then describes a later, more muted center in hostile disposition rather than hostile deeds. BMZ and Lexer independently document the Middle High German verb and its literary record. The reviewed ancestry follows the reconstructed Germanic weak-verb alternatives into the *hatiz- family, preserves the qualified *ḱh₂d-es- / *ḱeh₂d- proposal, and then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Old Norse weak verbdossier summary
hata
Old Norse hata is not only a medieval label for an inward feeling. The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose structures 101 prose citations under four active senses before its participial and reflexive branches: persecute; despise, reject, or cast aside; mock or humiliate; and hate, despise, or stand hostile toward. That ordering is a lexicographic analysis, not a chronology of semantic change. Fritzner independently begins with pursue or seek to destroy, continues through damage or destruction, and only then gives hate opposed to love. Zoëga likewise preserves poetic damage or destruction beside ordinary hate, while Cleasby and Vigfússon record active, reflexive, reciprocal, participial, and disputed poetic uses. Lexicon Poeticum displays eleven linked rows, including variants, damage, destruction, persecution, loathing, haters, and the gold-spending formula, but warns that its concordance has not been reviewed and that dates need checking. A c1200 scan of Holm perg 15 4°, folio 89v, was directly inspected against ONP's diplomatic transcription and visibly preserves hata in the line Elſcaþu hréinlife oc hata engi maɴ. All other rows remain source-reported. The generated possible runic inscriptions on modern dictionary transcriptions are excluded, and no exact historical pronunciation is invented.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
legend
A traditional story or explanatory inscription, descended from Latin “things to be read.”
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
lesson
A unit of instruction or something learned, descending through a word that first named an act or selection of reading.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0210
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*wer-dho-
something spoken; word
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European suffixed full grade
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 5
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*wr̥-dho-
something spoken; word
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European suffixed zero grade
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*wurdam
word; something spoken
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic horizon
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
boomerang
an Aboriginal Australian throwing club; later, something that recoils on its originator
- DATE
- 1824–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
cōnscius
knowing or aware; also knowing something along with another person
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old Norse / Indo-European
fjándi
enemy or opponent; devil, demon, evil spirit, pagan god, Satan, or a derogatory hated being or thing
- DATE
- Old Norse poetic and prose record
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
German / Indo-European
hassen
to feel hatred toward someone; to feel strong aversion toward a person, thing, or action
- DATE
- New High German and current German
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
legenda
things to be read
- DATE
- Medieval Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
lesson
a unit of instruction or something learned
- DATE
- 13th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Medieval Latin / Indo-European
omniscient-, omnisciēns
knowing all things; all-knowing
- DATE
- Medieval or New Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0315
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 8
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does every modern Feind literally mean one who hates?
No. The participial source is historical morphology. Modern Duden senses include personal enemy, hostile power or force, and a determined opponent of something without requiring a recoverable emotion in every token.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is emoticon another name or etymology for emoji?
No. Emoticon is English emotion plus icon. Emoji is Japanese e “picture” plus moji “character.” They can depict overlapping things without sharing a word formation.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does figure descend from dough because both mean something shaped?
No. Latin figūra and Germanic dough forms are separate root formations under *dheigh-.
resolvedestablishedposition text
How many meanings does the ONP entry distinguish?
Six numbered zones, with additional formulas: enemy or opponent; devil, monster, or demon; evil spirit; pagan god; the Devil or Satan; and a derogatory hated or bewitched being or thing.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did frēond become polysemous only after Old English?
No. Companion, ally or non-enemy, relation, religious friend, and social-legal helper uses are already represented in the Old English citation record.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does modern hassen apply only to people?
No. Duden separates hatred toward a person from strong aversion toward a thing or action and gives clausal-object examples.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does the Brokmer B 101 passage mean a mother cannot hate her children?
No. In context it says that if the mother is so poor that she cannot otherwise feed or rear her children, she may take something from the wergeld.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did legend originally mean a false story?
No. Medieval Latin legenda meant things to be read. The uncertainty or fictionality of a traditional story is a later development.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 7
RANK 2GRADE Aranked reveal
Truth began with firmness and fidelity.
Before truth centered factual correspondence, its family named what was firm, faithful, and steadfast.
RANK 39GRADE Aranked reveal
Old Norse fjándi was an enemy before it was the Devil.
Cleasby and Vigfússon identify the inherited -nd- shape as participial and gloss the older formation as properly a hater. Their first sense is the ordinary enemy; only after the introduction of Christianity does the historical account assign fjándi the fiend branch. ONP then reveals how far the word traveled: 222 citations across enemy, demon, evil spirit, pagan god, Satan, and derogatory uses for hated or bewitched beings and things. The truth is not that every enemy secretly hates. It is that a lexicalized agent noun became an ordinary social category, then accumulated new religious and expressive work.
RANK 86GRADE Aranked reveal
Origin does not get the last word.
Calling something “etymological” describes its historical analysis; it does not make an obsolete sense more correct than a word’s established current meaning.
RANK 133GRADE Acontrarian claim
Fiction is historically something shaped.
Latin fictiō names shaping or molding, feigning, and pretense before English literary narrative becomes one major center.
RANK 141GRADE Acontrarian claim
It has nothing to do with emotion.
Emoji is Japanese 絵 e “picture” plus 文字 moji “written character.” Emotion plus icon produced the separate word emoticon.
RANK 203GRADE Aranked reveal
A lesson began as a reading.
Anglo-French leçon and Late Latin lectio name reading before the word expands into instruction and something learned from experience.
RANK 206GRADE Acontrarian claim
A legend was “something to be read.”
The dubious-story sense came later than the Medieval Latin reading category.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “thing.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
050
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “thing.” 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.