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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 LOCAL3 source sections across 1 headword matching “Ser”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
serEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
This section has no extracted narrative. Its source may contain templates or descendants; no ancestry has been inferred from them here.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗serEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
This section has no extracted narrative. Its source may contain templates or descendants; no ancestry has been inferred from them here.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗serEnglish (en) · Etymology 3Source text
From Middle English ser. Popularised in modern fantasy by George R. R. Martin in the A Song of Ice and Fire series starting in 1996.
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
nouncontrarian claim
December
The twelfth month in the modern calendar; its inherited Latin name literally identifies it as the tenth month.
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 ↗nouncontrarian claim
aguacate
The Spanish word for the avocado tree and fruit, borrowed from Nahuatl āhuacatl, whose historical records include both fruit and testicle senses.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
algebra
A mathematical discipline whose English name travels through Medieval Latin from Arabic al-jabr, restoration or completion.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
alpaca
An English animal and fiber word borrowed through Spanish from Aymara allpaqa / allphaqa.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
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 ↗noundossier summary
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 nouncontrarian claim
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 · nounhistorical form
checkmate
An inescapable chess defeat and, figuratively, complete thwarting; a compound transmitted through French, Arabic, and Persian chess language.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun and adjectivecontrarian claim
dairy
Milk, milk products, or a place and enterprise devoted to them; historically built on the occupational word for a woman managing milk and food production.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjective · nounhistorical form
decimal
Based on ten or tenths; borrowed through French and Medieval Latin from the Latin family of decem, “ten.”
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbhistorical form
decimate
To destroy or reduce drastically; borrowed from a Latin verb built on “tenth” and first used in English for killing every tenth member of a group.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*daigjōn-
female baker or servant
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old French / Indo-European
-iser / -izer
verb-forming suffix
- DATE
- Old French period
- MATCH
- transliteration
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Middle English / Indo-European
boi
male servant; churl; young male
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old English / Indo-European
dǣge
female baker; female servant
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
hotel
a public lodging establishment, usually offering additional services
- DATE
- 1687–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
intelligence
capacity to understand; information; an information service
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
salt
salt used for seasoning and preservation
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old English / Indo-European
sealt
salt, sodium chloride, condiment, or preservative
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Beyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No Proto-Semitic reconstruction is asserted in this dossier.
- DATE
- before the reviewed Arabic derivation
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Beyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No securely reviewed ancestor beyond *mūs- is asserted.
- DATE
- before the reviewed Indo-European reconstruction
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Beyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No securely reviewed ancestor beyond *mūs- is asserted.
- DATE
- before the reviewed Indo-European reconstruction
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Beyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No securely reviewed ancestor beyond *mūs- is asserted.
- DATE
- before the reviewed Indo-European reconstruction
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openproposedposition text
Is the deepest root *leǵ- or *sleǵ-?
The traditional *leǵ- reconstruction remains widely represented, while published scholarship argues that the gather or collect root began with *s. The graph preserves both analyses.
openprobableposition text
Is the exact phonetic shape of *fi(j)and- directly known?
No. The form is a comparative reconstruction. Optional j notation, branch vowels, and the relation of written historical variants require analysis rather than direct Proto-Germanic observation.
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.
openproposedposition text
Does cais securely prove cognacy with the Germanic hate family?
No. The Celtic–Germanic comparison is serious enough to display, but the graph keeps it as a context link rather than a genealogical edge because formal and semantic acceptance remain unsettled.
openproposedposition text
Is the deepest brightness root *kand- or *(s)kend-?
The graph preserves both published analyses. The newer Merriam-Webster route uses *(s)kend- and explains candēre through a zero-grade stative formation; the prior *kand- route remains proposed.
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.
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
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
Is fēogan a strong verb or a weak contracted verb?
Bosworth–Toller labels the full FEÓGAN entry strong, but labels linked contracted feón weak and contracted. The displayed past forms in -de also require grammatical explanation. The dossier preserves the source-level tension rather than silently harmonizing it.
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.
openprobableposition text
Are hatan and hatjan two Gothic verbs or one fluctuating paradigm?
The sources preserve different analytical levels. Project Wulfila gives separate class-III and class-I lemmas; Orel publishes distinct comparative formations. Braune says hatan fluctuates with class-I hatjan, while Sturtevant proposes a specifically Gothic secondary explanation.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
RANK 1GRADE Aranked reveal
A stranger became both guest and enemy.
The reciprocal outsider behind guest and host also became Latin hostis, “enemy.”
RANK 9GRADE Aranked reveal
The most repeated origin story is not the most rigorous answer.
Mapuche ancestry is a serious, evidenced proposal—but current RAE and a historical Spanish argument keep the deeper source genuinely open.
RANK 13GRADE Aranked reveal
Legislation came before legislate.
The noun preserves a Latin law-bearing or law-proposing compound. English legislate was later back-formed from the already existing noun family.
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 16GRADE Aranked reveal
Humiliation is evidenced in English before humiliate.
Chaucer’s Middle English humiliacioun occurs in a humility passage; Merriam-Webster reports the English verb humiliate only circa 1534. Christian Latin and French preserve lowering, abasement, mortification, and self-humbling before current definitions center degradation, disgrace, and shame.
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 30GRADE Aranked reveal
Gothic hatis—the noun related to English hate—survives chiefly as wrath, including the wrath to come and the wrath of God.
Project Wulfila reports fifteen tokens in hatis, hatiza, and hatize. Fourteen are biblical; Streitberg maps the family chiefly to Greek orgē, gives Galatians 5:20 thumos, and flags Ephesians 4:31 because both stand together. Codex Argenteus folio 129r directly preserves hatiza in “the wrath to come.” Even the paradigm resists simplification: synchronic neuter a-stem, historically an i-stem remodeled into it.
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 41GRADE Aranked reveal
The enemy fossil and the living hate verb coexisted in Old High German.
AWB records fîên as a weak verb only in eighth- and ninth-century Alemannic manuscripts, but the pocket preserves an infinitive, present participle, preterite, and past participle across hate, hostility, detestation, and rejection. Beside it, fîant was already a strong masculine enemy noun whose old participial character could still shine through in fixed phrases. Old High German therefore preserves both sides of the history at once: the live verbal family and the noun already lexicalized from it. The evidence reveals a grammatical relationship, not the psychology of every enemy and not a securely recovered Proto-Indo-European essence.
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 45GRADE Aranked reveal
One Gothic anger verb survives in one question—and not in its dictionary form.
Project Wulfila’s complete current inventory contains one hatizōn token: hatizoþ in John 7:23, “are you angry at me?” Codex Argenteus folio 94v directly preserves the inflection. The manuscript never writes the normalized infinitive or its editorial macron. Grammar then reveals another layer: hatizōn is a class-II verb built from the consonantal stem hatiz- of hatis “hatred” or “wrath.” One English gloss therefore hides a noun-to-verb formation, one surviving grammatical person, and a sharp boundary between pixels and reconstruction.
041
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
053
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
German Bible enemy proverb
Feind / Feind / 1483
Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm — feind, m.witness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Bright’s edited Phoenix, preserved in the Exeter Book
hettan / hettan / Old English Phoenix record
An Anglo-Saxon Reader — The Phœnixreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
metrical glossary citation in eDIL
cais / cais / date not normalized; source-reported
eDIL — 1 cais, noun explained as both love and hatewitness excerpt / 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.