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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 LOCAL2 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Old”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
OldEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
* In Northamptonshire, recorded as Walda in 1086 (DB), becoming Wolde in the 14th century, and later Old. From Old English or Old Saxon wald.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗oldEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós Proto-Germanic *aldaz Proto-West Germanic *ald Anglian Old English ald Middle English old English old Inherited from Middle English old, oold, from Old English ald, eald (“old, aged, ancient, antique, primeval”), from Proto-West Germanic *ald, from Proto-Germanic *aldaz (“grown-up”), originally a participle form, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós (“grown, tall, big”). Cognates Cognate with Scots aald, auld (“old”), Yola yola, yolaw, yold, yole (“old”), North Frisian ool, ual, uuil, uul, üülj (“old”), Saterland Frisian oold (“old”), West Frisian âld (“old”), Alemannic German altu, oalt, oalts, olt, àltà (“old”), Bavarian oid (“old”), Central Franconian alt, aod, auw, oot (“old”), Cimbrian and German alt (“old”), Dutch oud (“old”), German Low German old, oolt (“old”), Luxembourgish al (“old”), Mòcheno òlt (“old”), Vilamovian aołd (“old”), Yiddish אַלט (alt, “old”), Danish ældre (“elderly”), Faroese eldri (“elder, older”), Icelandic aldinn (“old”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk eldre (“elderly”), Swedish äldre (“elderly”), Crimean Gothic alt (“old”), Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌸𐌴𐌹𐍃 (alþeis, “old”), Latin altus (“high, tall, grown big, lofty”). Related to eld.
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
Feind
The modern German noun for a personal, political, military, or ideological enemy or opponent. Duden derives it through Middle High German vīnt or vīant and Old High German fīand, literally the hating one; DWDS dates Old High German fīant and fījant to the eighth century and identifies the Germanic ancestor as a petrified substantivized present participle. Grimm’s dictionary independently compares Gothic fijands, Old English fēond, English fiend, Dutch vijand, and Nordic forms, while warning that its own still-deeper foam hypothesis required confirmation. The reviewed route therefore follows the inherited enemy noun to reconstructed *fi(j)and- and *fi(j)ēn-, then treats *peh₁- as proposed and stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗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 ↗German masculine noundossier summary
Hass
The modern German noun for intense aversion, rejection, or hostility toward a person, group, or institution. Duden traces Middle and Old High German haʒ to suffering, sorrow, and resentment and records the 1996 spelling change from Haß to Hass. DWDS/Pfeifer reports the Old High German noun from the eighth century and places it in the Germanic family of Old Saxon heti, Old English hete, Old Norse hatr, Gothic hatis, and related forms. Grimm’s DWB preserves a more complicated semantic record: hostile pursuit or action, anger expressed in deeds, ordinary hostile disposition, and even measured rivalry during friendly competition. The reviewed route reuses *hatiz- and the qualified *ḱh₂d-es- / *ḱeh₂d- comparison, then stops.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
Liebe
The German noun for love, inherited through Middle and Old High German and a Germanic abstract-noun formation distinct from the immediate noun ancestry of English love.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
algorism
The older English word for calculation with Hindu-Arabic numerals, transmitted through French and Medieval Latin from the name al-Khwārizmī.
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 · verbcontrarian claim
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
bride
A woman about to be or recently married; inherited from Old English brȳd and directly preserved inside bridegroom.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
bridegroom
A man about to be or recently married; remodeled from bridegome after the older man-word gome became opaque.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗Middle Irish nounhistorical form
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 ↗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 ↗adjectivehistorical form
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 ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*dheig̑h-
to form; build
- DATE
- oldest Proto-Indo-European form
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 5
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*dhg̑hem-
earth
- DATE
- oldest Proto-Indo-European form
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 5
Old English / Indo-European
*gyrela
proposed predecessor of girle
- DATE
- proposed Old English form
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old High German / Indo-European
*hezzen
a reconstructed weak verb meaning chase or persecute
- DATE
- reconstructed Old High German bridge
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Celtic / Indo-European
*katsi-
a proposed Celtic formation compared with Middle Irish cais and Old Welsh cas
- DATE
- proposed Proto-Celtic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old Chinese (reconstructed) / Sino-Tibetan
*lˤra
name of a plant
- DATE
- Old Chinese reconstruction
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 7
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 French / Indo-European
-al
adjective-forming suffix
- DATE
- Old French period
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old English / Indo-European
-dige
kneader element
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old French / Indo-European
-iser / -izer
verb-forming suffix
- DATE
- Old French period
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Old French / Indo-European
-logie
learned noun-forming element transmitted into Middle English
- DATE
- Old French
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old English / Indo-European
-ræden
condition, state, estimation, rule, or relation to the first compound element
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- language
- DOSSIERS
- 0
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openprobableposition text
Did English receive December through Old English or French?
The reviewed source allows either Old English or Anglo-French transmission from Latin and does not choose between them.
openprobableposition text
Did English algorism arrive through French or directly from Medieval Latin?
The sources preserve both channels. Merriam-Webster names Middle French and Medieval Latin; Etymonline emphasizes Old French from Medieval Latin.
openprobableposition text
What securely precedes Old English brȳd?
The sources publish broad Germanic comparanda, including Old High German brūt, but this dossier does not yet have a reviewed source that warrants one reconstructed parent.
openproposedposition text
Can the movement family be pushed securely beyond *meue-?
Not from the reviewed evidence. Etymonline publishes *meue- for the movement root, but this dossier does not promote an older form without specialist comparative review.
openestablishedposition text
Does the ODS Sanskrit comparison prove a direct Sanskrit-to-Danish line?
No. ODS preserves an older comparison with Sanskrit pīyati, while modern comparative work gives a reconstructed route. Neither source licenses a historical borrowing or direct line.
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.
openprobableposition text
Was Old English frēond still transparently a productive participle in every use?
Not demonstrably. Its history is participial, but OED says it inflects as a strong masculine agent noun and the textual record uses it as an ordinary noun.
openproposedposition text
Does friend securely descend from exactly *prī-?
It is a published Indo-European comparison, not direct attestation. The Germanic and Old English stages are firmer than the deepest displayed root.
openprobableposition text
Can the exact Old Norse pronunciation be heard or uniquely recovered?
No. The displayed IPA is a normalized scholarly approximation; manuscript spelling and comparative phonology cannot reproduce one recorded medieval voice.
openprobableposition text
Did friend or kin come first semantically?
The inherited agent formation and daughter-language distributions do not recover one securely dated semantic split. Old Norse evidence preserves overlap rather than a single transition record.
openprobableposition text
Was every Old English frēond token still a productive participle?
Not demonstrably. OED classifies the word as a strong masculine nd-agent noun, and Bosworth–Toller labels the headword a masculine noun even while preserving its participial history.
openprobableposition text
Can the exact pronunciation of frēond be heard or uniquely recovered?
No. The displayed IPA is a normalized scholarly approximation across written dialect evidence, not one recorded Old English voice.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
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 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 15GRADE Aranked reveal
The modern stigma of Weib is not the timeless nature of wīb.
Duden marks modern Weib increasingly discriminatory, while Old High German records preserve wīb in old-woman and wife expressions; the deeper origin remains unresolved.
RANK 20GRADE Aranked reveal
King is a kin-word, not a royal word.
English king continues Old English cyning and Germanic *kuninga-, built on the kin or lineage base *kunja-. Latin rēx, royal, and regal belong to a different root—and even “leader of the kin” overstates the disputed original Germanic sense.
RANK 21GRADE Aranked reveal
King comes from the kin family; kin does not come from king.
English kin independently continues Old English cynn and Germanic *kunja-. The royal title is a separate suffixed formation on that lineage base, so the shared letters preserve real morphology without making either modern word the parent of the other.
RANK 25GRADE Acontrarian claim
Hate was enemy-directed action as well as feeling in Old English.
Old English hatian could mean treating as an enemy, persecuting, or injuring; Beowulf puts the verb beside hostile deeds. The deeper claim that pursuit was the first meaning remains open, and the graph says so.
RANK 26GRADE Acontrarian claim
Old English hated vices and deeds as well as people.
Bosworth–Toller’s Pastoral Care examples make conduct grammatical: rulers hate their subjects’ vices, and the text distinguishes loving what enemies are from hating what they do. The historical verb therefore records directed moral and hostile judgment, not only an inward emotion label.
RANK 27GRADE Acontrarian claim
The Old English verb survives most visibly as an enemy.
The located weak-verb corpus inventory gives hettan only one form: hettende. Bosworth–Toller records that surface family repeatedly under hettend, “enemy” or “antagonist,” including Genesis and the Phoenix. The verb is therefore not a neat recovered paradigm; it is a lemma inferred at the edge between action, agent, and lexicalized foe.
RANK 34GRADE Aranked reveal
The Devil entered English as the Enemy—and the enemy was a fossilized hater.
OED’s revised history identifies fiend as an inherited Germanic noun made from the present participle of the hate verb. Old English fēond meant enemy and foe as well as Devil; OED explains Satan as the ultimate Enemy and marks the literal enemy sense obsolete after the medieval period. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV still visibly preserves feondes in a concrete foe’s-footprint scene at Beowulf 2289.
RANK 35GRADE Aranked reveal
A fiend was an enemy before it was a demon.
OED’s revised history starts with enemy or foe and explains the Devil as the ultimate Enemy. The English noun continues Old English fēond, itself inherited from a Germanic lexicalized one-who-hates formation. Middle English then preserves enemy, Satan, demon, possession, and monster senses together before the literal enemy sense becomes obsolete.
RANK 36GRADE Aranked reveal
German Feind is English fiend’s undemonic cousin: both fossilize one who hates.
Duden, DWDS/Pfeifer, and Grimm independently carry Feind through Middle and Old High German to a substantivized hating participle. OED places English fiend on the collateral Old English branch. German retained the ordinary enemy or opponent at its semantic center; English turned the cognate toward Devil, demon, and vicious person.
RANK 38GRADE Acontrarian claim
Old High German fīant was already a noun—but in fixed phrases its old participial character could still shine through.
AWB calls fîant / fîjant a strong masculine noun, then isolates fixed formulas where its old participial character can still shine through. Fîant uuesan could mean be hostile, hate someone, or wish someone ill; fîant mahhôn meant make hostile; zi fîante tuon could mean regard as an enemy or hate. Beside it, AWB records the live weak verb fîên, to hate, in eighth- and ninth-century Alemannic manuscripts. The word is therefore more revealing than a simple literal gloss: it is a lexicalized noun whose older verbal architecture remained locally visible in syntax.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
research database7 CLAIM LINKS
Old High German Reflex Index — Pokorny k̑ād-
Linguistics Research Center editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly reference7 CLAIM LINKS
Old Irish Online: Introduction
Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel and University of Texas Linguistics Research Center Editors
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly article4 CLAIM LINKS
Old English Reflexes of Sievers’ Law
Elżbieta Adamczyk / 2001
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗research database4 CLAIM LINKS
Old Saxon Reflex Index — hatan, hatōn, heti, and hōti under k̑ād-
Linguistics Research Center editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary75 CLAIM LINKS
Altsächsisches Wörterbuch — hatōn and hėttiand
Gerhard Köbler / 2014
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary22 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — fjándi, masculine noun
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary21 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — fjándi
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary20 CLAIM LINKS
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — FRÆNDI
Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon / 1874
publisherAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary20 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — frǽndi, masculine noun
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly database13 CLAIM LINKS
Baxter–Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction, Version 1.1
William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart / 2014
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — fjá, poetic verb
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2010
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — hata, verb
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors / 2023
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗0512
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old English lexical record
lufu / love / Old English period
Bosworth–Toller: lufuwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Old High German headword horizon
fīant / Feind / eighth century, source-reported
DWDS — Feind, etymology after Wolfgang Pfeiferwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Old High German headword horizon
haʒ / Hass / eighth century, source-reported
DWDS — Hass, etymology after Wolfgang Pfeiferwitness-title prefix / 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 Pointwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old English lexical record
cliewen / clue / Old English period
Bosworth–Toller: cliewenwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old Dutch Willeram, plural friends addressed
friunt / vriend / circa 1100, source-reported
Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands — vriendwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old Dutch Willeram, beloved companion and friend
friunt / vriend / circa 1100, source-reported
Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands — vriendwitness-title prefix / 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 Althochdeutschenwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old High German historical-form record for liob reported by Duden
liob / lieb / Old High German period
lieb — Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition, Herkunftwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Old English reader occurrence reported by Bosworth–Toller
hete / hete / Old English prose record
HETE — An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Onlinewitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Old High German headword horizon
fīant / fīant / eighth century; source-reported
DWDS — Feind, etymology after Wolfgang Pfeiferwitness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Old High German Tatian, weeds parable
fīant / fīant / ninth-century Old High German Tatian; edited text
Tatian: Lateinisch und altdeutsch mit ausführlichem Glossar, 2nd ed. — section 72, p. 96witness-title prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
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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.