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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL7 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Ray”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
RayEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
* As an English surname, from pet forms derived from the root of Raymond. * Also as an English surname, from Old French rei (“king”). Compare Roy, King. * Also as an English surname, from Old English rā (“roe deer”). Compare Roe. * Also as an English surname, variant of Wray and Rye. * As a Scottish Gaelic surname, shortened from McRae. * As a French surname, from the verb raier (“to gush out, flow, radiate”). Compare Leray. * As a Polish and Slovene surname, Americanized from Raj, from raj (“paradise”). * As an Indian surname, variant of Rai.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗RayEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
From Persian ری (ray /rey), from Middle Persian, from Old Persian 𐎼𐎥𐎠 (r-g-a /ragā/), a Median district. Compare Akkadian 𒊏𒂵𒀪 (ra-ga-'), Elamite 𒊩𒋡𒀭 (rák-ka₄-an) (loc.), Ancient Greek Ῥάγαι (Rhágai), Latin Rhagae, Rhaganae, Iranian borrowings.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗rayEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Via Middle English, borrowed from Old French rai, from Latin radius (“staff, stake, spoke”). Doublet of radius.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗rayEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
From Middle English raye, rayȝe, from Old French raie, from Latin raia, of uncertain origin. Compare Middle English reyhhe, reihe, reȝge (“ray, skate”), from Old English reohhe (“ray”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗rayEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
Shortened from array.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗rayEnglish (en) · Etymology 4Source text
From its sound, by analogy with the letters chay, jay, gay, kay, which it resembles graphically.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗rayEnglish (en) · Etymology 5Source text
Alternative forms.
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, 2024011
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
021
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
031
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 1
openproposedposition text
Are the prayer and gathering senses identical histories?
They converge on Latin collēctus / colligere, but the prayer noun may refer specifically to a congregation’s gathering place; the immediate motivation is qualified as “perhaps.”
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 0
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “ray.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
052
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
A passage about the crystalline lens in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses the inflected English form collects while describing how the lens gathers and refracts rays.
collect / collect / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and scienceswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexical record for the prayer noun
collect / collect / before 12th century
Collect — Word Historyreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗06
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