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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 “By”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
BYEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
From the preposition by.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗byEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bi Proto-West Germanic *bī Old English bī Middle English by English by From Middle English by, bi, from Old English bī (“by; near; around”), from Proto-West Germanic *bī, from Proto-Germanic *bi (“near; by; around; about”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi. Cognate with West Frisian by (“by; near”), Afrikaans by (“at; by; near”), Saterland Frisian bie (“near; by”), Dutch bij (“near; by”), German Low German bi (“by; near; at”), German bei (“by; near; at”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗byEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bi Proto-West Germanic *bī Old English bī Middle English by English by From Middle English by, bi, from Old English bī (“by; near; around”), from Proto-West Germanic *bī, from Proto-Germanic *bi (“near; by; around; about”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi. Cognate with West Frisian by (“by; near”), Afrikaans by (“at; by; near”), Saterland Frisian bie (“near; by”), Dutch bij (“near; by”), German Low German bi (“by; near; at”), German bei (“by; near; at”).
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.
Mayhew–Skeat (1888)
1888; pinned HTML transcription updated October 28, 20240112
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
German masculine noundossier summary
Freund
German Freund continues Middle High German vriunt and Old High German friunt. DWDS/Pfeifer, Duden, and Grimm independently analyze the inherited Germanic formation as a substantivized present participle of the verb represented by Gothic frijōn and Old English frēogan: historically a loving or favorably disposed one. The record is semantically wider than a modern close companion: the historical dictionaries also document neighbor, relative, lover, ally, supporter, patron, address, and euphemistic uses. The graph joins the High German line to the same reviewed *frijōnd- and *frī- nodes as English friend, keeps *prī- proposed, and stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
avocado
An English reshaping of Spanish aguacate from Nahuatl āhuacatl, a word documented with both avocado and testicle senses.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
bayou
English bayou, recorded by 1763, came from Louisiana French bayouque. An early Choctaw *bayok is a plausible proposed source, but the historical form and its alleged contraction to modern bók are not securely attested.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbcontrarian claim
betroth
To promise in marriage; a Middle English prefixed formation built on the same historical noun that yielded truth and troth.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbdossier summary
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 ↗nounhistorical form
bride
A woman about to be or recently married; inherited from Old English brȳd and directly preserved inside bridegroom.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Middle Irish noundossier summary
cais
eDIL separates two Irish headwords written cais. The first, also recorded as caise, is explicitly explained both as love and as hate; its cited passages and glossary equations range from searc and grádh "love" to miscais and mioscais "hatred", with context deciding individual readings. One Éigse line is tentatively translated so that the same visible form occurs on both sides: "my love ... is met by hatred(?)". The question mark matters. The second eDIL headword cais means "eye" and is excluded from this semantic lineage. These records establish a remarkable lexicographic opposition, not one timeless essence, a chronology from love to hate, or proof that every occurrence belongs to one historically indivisible sense. John T. Koch compares the noun with Proto-Celtic *katsi- < *kad-t/si- and a wider *kad- family, but that ancestry and its proposed Germanic comparison remain open. eDIL itself generally supplies etymologies only selectively. No manuscript pixels were directly inspected, no earliest-use or historical-frequency claim is made, and no exact pronunciation is invented.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
chai
In current English, a South Asian-style tea commonly prepared with milk and spices; the word belongs to the overland cha/chay transmission family ultimately derived from Chinese 茶.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
chá
The Portuguese word for tea, a European cha-type form associated with sixteenth-century Portuguese contact through Macao rather than the Dutch te-type route.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb · noun · adjectivehistorical form
collect
To bring together, accumulate, infer, or receive; from Latin colligere, literally built with a together-prefix and legere.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivecontrarian claim
etymological
Of, relating to, or based on etymology; an Early Modern English adjective whose exact formation is described differently by major historical dictionaries.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
etymologist
A specialist in etymology; an English agent noun formed on etymology with -ist.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*xatjanan
a reconstructed Germanic weak verb represented by Gothic hatjan, Old English hettan, and Middle High German hetzen
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 3
Old English / Indo-European
bi-/be-
by, near; prefix with several later functions
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
collect
to bring together; a prayer; payable by recipient
- DATE
- before 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
etymologia
explanation of a word by its origin
- DATE
- antiquity–medieval
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 3
Latin / Indo-European
etymologia
etymology; explanation by origin
- DATE
- Classical Latin–medieval learned Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old English / Indo-European
gecynde
natural, native, innate, proper, fitting, or inherited by birth
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
kayak
a narrow pointed boat propelled by a double-bladed paddle
- DATE
- 1757–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
king
a monarch; by extension a preeminent person, game piece, card, or crowned checker
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
legal
of, founded on, or permitted by law
- DATE
- 15th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
shaman
a spiritual practitioner described in English by the generalized term shaman
- DATE
- 1698–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
tea
the leaves of Camellia sinensis or a beverage made by infusing them
- DATE
- 1655–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
truce
temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement
- DATE
- 13th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openproposedposition text
Does the Éigse line certainly use cais once for love and once for hatred?
Not certainly. eDIL tentatively translates "mo chais is cais 'na agaid" as "my love ... is met by hatred(?)" and prints a question mark on the second reading.
openproposedposition text
Are the opposite readings one polysemous word, merged historical homonyms, or a lexicographic convenience?
eDIL groups them in one headword but does not, by that editorial act alone, settle the full historical relationship among every love and hate occurrence.
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.
openproposedposition text
Is *set-u- certain?
No. It is a serious published reconstruction, but the exact morphology and wider family are analyzed differently by scholars.
openspeculativeposition text
Can one coinage event be named for enemy becoming the Devil?
No unique event is established. OED explains a recurring ultimate-enemy use shaped by Latin hostis and the adversary meaning behind satan, but does not identify one inventor or first metaphorical moment.
openestablishedposition text
What is the exact earliest surviving Danish fjende token?
Not established by the inspected public evidence. Gammeldansk Ordbog reports fiende as known since 1100–1300 but exposes no exact first token on the entry page.
openprobableposition text
Are there exactly three surviving Old Norse uses?
Three is the count in the reviewed public Lexicon Poeticum surface and matches the three locations in Cleasby and Fritzner, but it is not presented as a census of every lost or surviving utterance.
openestablishedposition text
Was fjá obsolete at one exact medieval date?
No. Cleasby calls the word obsolete from a nineteenth-century lexicographic perspective, but the reviewed record does not identify a last speaker or extinction year.
openspeculativeposition text
Why did kinship become central in Scandinavian?
Cleasby–Vigfússon and Fritzner propose social explanations involving strong family bonds and mutual obligation, but the textual distribution does not uniquely prove one causal event.
openprobableposition text
Does sem frændr en eigi sem fiandr prove the ordinary friend sense?
ONP files the phrase under friend but flags possible kin sense 3; Cleasby–Vigfússon treats it as a possible alliterative exception. The citation does not force one clean answer.
openproposedposition text
Does frēond securely descend from exactly *prī-?
The deep comparison is published by American Heritage but remains proposed and less secure than the Germanic participial formation.
openprobableposition text
How broadly distributed is *ghos-ti-?
The reconstruction is supported by Germanic, Italic, and Slavic evidence but is limited to a western set of Indo-European branches.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
RANK 6GRADE Aranked reveal
Evidence became a thread you could follow.
Old English cliewen was a ball of thread; the labyrinth metaphor turned it into guidance through uncertainty.
RANK 12GRADE Aranked reveal
A Turkish word is not proof of who invented the food.
English yogurt is Turkish yoğurt, probably related to yoğur- “knead”; the origin of fermented milk is a different historical question.
RANK 31GRADE Aranked reveal
Gothic’s two hate verbs trade places across two passages.
The complete surviving hatan corpus contains only hatandane in Luke 1:71 and hatandans in Luke 6:27. In Luke 1, fijandam supplies enemies while hatandane supplies those hating; in Luke 6, hatandans supplies enemies while fijandam supplies those hating. Both Codex Argenteus pages are directly inspected. The lexical swap—and the class-III versus class-I dispute—cannot be represented by one timeless translation arrow.
RANK 37GRADE Aranked reveal
Swedish fiende is not built from modern hata.
SO says fiende originally meant hatande. SAOB and Hellquist make the hidden grammar explicit: the enemy noun is a lexicalized present participle of the Germanic fi(j)- verb, literally one who hates. But SAOB’s separate hata article places the modern Swedish hate verb in the hat- family. Swedish therefore carries two different Germanic hate histories side by side: one fossilized inside the everyday noun enemy, the other alive as the everyday verb hata.
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 42GRADE Aranked reveal
The ordinary Old Norse enemy outlived the finite hate verb behind it.
ONP classifies fjá as poetic and exposes no prose citations. Cleasby, Fritzner, and Lexicon Poeticum converge on three Eddic contexts, while normalized texts preserve active fjá, finite fíár, and reflexive fiásk. Cleasby then points to fjándi as the participial relative that remained across Germanic. ONP gives that separate enemy noun 222 prose citations and a large semantic range. The two corpus totals are not directly frequency-comparable, and neither proves an exact extinction event; together they reveal the asymmetry between a tiny finite-verb record and the prolific lexicalized enemy branch.
RANK 51GRADE Aranked reveal
Care, grief, funerals, and in-laws occupy one Greek noun—but hate does not secretly mean care.
LSJ's κῆδος entry moves through care and concern, anxiety and grief, troubles, mourning and funeral rites, an object of care, and connection by marriage. Homeric κήδεʼ can be many-troubled woes; Aeschylus can make Helen an object of care while playing on marriage affinity. Comparative sources then place the noun beside Celtic and Germanic hatred words under *ḱh₂d-es- and *ḱeh₂d-. The reveal is not a mystical reversal in which hate “really” means care. Merriam-Webster calls the semantic relations far from transparent, Liberman challenges the wider family's unity, and the Greek evidence itself resists a single linear story.
RANK 55GRADE Aranked reveal
frændi is friend’s cognate—but kinship became its Old Norse center.
The Germanic family did not carry one frozen dictionary definition into every daughter language. OED places Old Icelandic frændi beside English friend; Cleasby–Vigfússon and Fritzner preserve the old participial analysis; ONP then exposes what happened in use. Its 225 citations distinguish friend, foster brother or companion, kinsman or son, parents, and ancestor, with no sharp wall between friend and kin. The unveiling is semantic divergence backed by a shared graph: English centers chosen companion, while the Scandinavian cognate centers family without ceasing to be cognate.
RANK 59GRADE A-ranked reveal
Old Norse hatr has a 54-to-1 grammar problem.
The University of Copenhagen’s Dictionary of Old Norse Prose separates a 54-citation neuter noun from a one-citation masculine analysis—and flags the lone masculine assignment as possibly an elementary error. A directly inspected c.1150-1200 manuscript visibly preserves Hatr, but a visible token cannot settle gender by itself. The reveal is not that Old Norse had two equally secure hate nouns; it is that rigorous lexicography preserves the fracture instead of hiding it.
RANK 78GRADE Aranked reveal
The maritime rule has a maritime exception.
Portuguese chá crossed through Macao by sea yet belongs to the cha-type family usually associated with overland diffusion. Historical tendencies are not laws.
RANK 93GRADE Aranked reveal
Decimal is named for tenths, not the point.
The word runs through the tenth-part family to Latin decem “ten.” The decimal point is a notation used by decimals, not the ancestor that named them.
RANK 101GRADE Acontrarian claim
To betroth is to bind by one’s truth or troth.
Middle English bitrouthen visibly combines bi-/be- with trouth, the historical fidelity noun before modern truth and troth were cleanly separated.
0410
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary21 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — fjándi
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary20 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — FRÆNDI
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary16 CLAIM LINKS
Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm — Freund
Jacob Grimm · Wilhelm Grimm / 1878
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical grammar15 CLAIM LINKS
A Gothic Grammar with Selections for Reading and a Glossary — hatan and hatjan
Wilhelm Braune · translated and edited by Gerhard H. Balg / 1895
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary14 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — fjá
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary14 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — hatr
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon · Sampo Silvennoinen digital edition / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary9 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — hata
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗etymological dictionary5 CLAIM LINKS
An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language — hetzen
Friedrich Kluge · translated by John Francis Davis / 1891
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary1 CLAIM LINKS
Cleasby–Vigfusson Old Norse Dictionary: lag
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗digitized primary source1 CLAIM LINKS
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama
Karel Čapek; translated by Paul Selver / 1923
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗0512
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s Lexicon technicum prints the historical English headword LOGICK and opens by calling it the art of right thinking.
logic / logic / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
A passage in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum cites a Lecture by Nehemiah Grew about varieties of taste read before the Royal Society.
lecture / lecture / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Herodotus occurrence reported by the Liddell–Scott entry
μῦς / μυς / c. 430 BCE
μῦς — Liddell and Scott Ancient Greek Dictionaryreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old English gecynde passage reported by Loureiro-Porto
cynd / gecynd / kind / circa 888 passage reported from Alfred’s Boethius
Pragmatic Markers in World Englishes: Kind of and Sort of as a Case in Pointreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk record discussed by Alonso de la Fuente
kayguk / kayık / 11th-century kayguk report
Urban legends: Turkish kayık “boat” and “Eskimo” qayaq “kayak”reporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus as indexed by the Middle English Dictionary
-logie / -logy / before 1398 source-reported Middle English quotation
Middle English Dictionary: etimologie n.reporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Albrecht Achilles source reported by DRW
hetzen / hessen / hittzen / hetzen / 1472 legal hunting record
Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch — hetzen, hessenreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Luther record reported by FWB
hetzen / hessen / hittzen / hetzen / 1537/40 polemical record
Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch — hetzenreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
John Shakespear dictionary entry reported by Faruqi
چائے / چائے / 1834 Shakespear dictionary record, source-reported
چا — Urdu spelling history of the tea wordreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
G. Callaway, Fellowship of Veld, source-reported by DSAE
ubuntu / ubuntu / 1926
Ubuntu, nounreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old High German liubî record reported by the EWA article
liubī / Liebe / 10th century
liuben; giliuben; liubi; liubî — Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschenreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Lutgart A, as reported by the Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek
lief / lief / 1276–1300
smeken — Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboekreporting source / 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.