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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 1 headword matching “Use”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
useEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃eyt-der.? Proto-Italic *oitōr Latin ūtor Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin ūsus Old French usbor. Middle English use English use Inherited from Middle English use, from Old French us, from Latin ūsus (“use, custom, skill, habit”), from past participle stem of ūtor (“use”). Displaced native Middle English note (“use”) (see note) from Old English notu; Middle English nutte (“use”) from Old English nytt; as well as Old English fricu and Old English sidu.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗useEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Etymology tree Latin ūtī Early Medieval Latin ūsō Early Medieval Latin ūsāre Old French userbor. Middle English usen English use Inherited from Middle English usen, from Old French user (“use, employ, practice”), from Medieval Latin usare (“use”), frequentative form of past participle stem of Latin uti (“to use”). Displaced native Middle English noten, nutten (“to use”) (from Old English notian, nēotan, nyttian) and Middle English brouken, bruken (“to use, enjoy”) (from Old English brūcan).
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
noun combining formdossier summary
-logy
A bound English word element used in formations involving discourse or expression and in names of doctrines, theories, sciences, and fields of study.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗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
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
adverb
A grammatical class commonly modifying verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, phrases, clauses, or sentences; the English term continues Latin adverbium.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
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 ↗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 ↗verbcontrarian claim
calculate
To determine mathematically or estimate, borrowed from a Latin family built around counting with pebbles.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
calculus
A mathematical system, a method of reasoning, or a bodily stone; borrowed from a Latin word for a pebble used in counting.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbcontrarian claim
clue
A fact that guides discovery—once literally a ball of thread.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbdossier summary
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-Siouan / Siouan
*ahtí•
dwell, dwelling, house
- DATE
- Proto-Siouan prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*kad-
a proposed base used in a wider Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Iranian, and Greek comparison
- DATE
- proposed Proto-Indo-European base
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*lagojanan
to cause to lie; to lay
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*mūs
mouse
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*mūs-
mouse; also the family behind specialized muscle words
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 4
Present-Day English / Indo-European
adverb
a word class modifying verbs, adjectives, adverbs, phrases, clauses, or sentences
- DATE
- 15th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
bi-/be-
prefix used in bitrouthen
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Latin / Indo-European
bōia
collar or yoke used to restrain criminals
- DATE
- Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old Norse / Indo-European
bōndi
householder; dweller
- DATE
- Old Norse
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
emoji
a small image, symbol, or icon used in electronic communication
- DATE
- 1997–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Anglo-French / Indo-European
feign-
stem used in feindre
- DATE
- Anglo-French bound stem
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old Swedish / Indo-European
fiande / fiände
enemy or opponent; also the Devil in recorded medieval use
- DATE
- Old Swedish; recorded from the beginning of the 1300s
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0324
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openprobableposition text
Does the English record begin in the 13th or 14th century?
The reviewed reports differ. Etymonline gives an early-thirteenth-century algorism; Merriam-Webster gives a fourteenth-century first-known-use horizon.
openprobableposition text
Does the English record begin in the 13th or 15th century?
The reviewed source reports differ. Etymonline gives mid-thirteenth-century arsmetike; Merriam-Webster gives a fifteenth-century first-known-use horizon.
openproposedposition text
Is the deepest counting root *h₂rei- or *erei-dhmo- from *re-?
The references use different levels and notations: Merriam-Webster derives the Greek base through *h₂rei-, while Etymonline prints an expanded *erei-dhmo- formation tied to *re-.
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
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.
openprobableposition text
What is the earliest surviving use of cais in either sense?
Not established here. eDIL supplies located citations but the underlying objects and dates were not normalized or directly inspected for an earliest-use audit.
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.
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.
openprobableposition text
Was emotion first used in the 1570s or exactly 1579?
Etymonline gives the decade; Merriam-Webster gives 1579. These are compatible levels of precision, not proof of one first utterance.
openprobableposition text
How was English etymological formed?
Merriam-Webster analyzes etymologic from Latin etymologicus and etymological as etymologic + -al; Etymonline analyzes etymology + -ical.
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.
openprobableposition text
Are fijan and hatan perfect synonyms?
They overlap, but the surviving corpus does not prove identity. In Luke 1 fijandam supplies enemies and hatandane those hating; in Luke 6 hatandans supplies enemies and fijandam those hating. Sturtevant uses their association in a formal argument without proving interchangeable semantics everywhere.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
RANK 5GRADE Aranked reveal
Calculation began with a pebble in the hand.
Latin calculus was a small stone used for reckoning before calculation became abstract.
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 29GRADE Aranked reveal
One Gothic hate verb survives once—in a command to do good to those who hate you.
Project Wulfila’s only verified hatjan token is hatjandam in Matthew 5:44, directly visible on Codex Argenteus folio 3v. A parallel “love your enemies” command in Luke 6:27 instead uses hatandans from class-III hatan. The translation gloss “hate” therefore hides a genuine grammatical and historical dispute.
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 32GRADE Acontrarian claim
Enemy is a fossilized hater—but 21 Gothic tokens still refuse to choose.
Project Wulfila lists 42 candidates under fijan and 26 under the enemy noun fijands. Their intersection is exactly 21 surface tokens. Ayora Estevan explains the collision: *fi(j)and- had lexicalized as enemy before Gothic, while Gothic still possessed the productive present participle one who hates. Case and syntax resolve some passages; the remaining 21 stay public as noun-versus-participle ambiguity.
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 49GRADE Aranked reveal
The token is attested even though the dictionary headword wears an asterisk.
Köbler heads the Old Saxon noun hėti* but lists written accusative and dative heti plus genitive hetias beneath it. The exact Munich Heliand token is directly visible in the clause rîkioro manno heti endi harmquidi. The dictionary count three also hides a second distinction: it means three lexical loci, while Heliand 1322 survives with M, C, and V readings, producing five reported witness readings across the dossier. The star therefore belongs to an editorial headword layer; it does not erase the attested surface or turn Old Saxon into Proto-Germanic. The visible Heliand context is endured hostility or persecution, while the Saxon Confession groups hetias with malice, envy, and slander. Even the inherited grammar stays open: Fulk and Köbler use an i-stem analysis, whereas Pfeifer calls the wider noun an old es/os-stem.
RANK 52GRADE Aranked reveal
Friend and fiend are grammatical twins—but not cognates.
OED analyzes friend as a noun use of the present participle behind the Germanic free and love family, and it explicitly calls fiend a similar formation. Bosworth–Toller makes the Old English structure visible: freónd is the loving participle of freón, to free or love. The enemy word follows a different hate verb. The real unveiling is structural: one inherited agent noun is the loving one, the other the hating one or enemy, and parallel grammar must not be mistaken for one root splitting into moral opposites.
RANK 53GRADE Aranked reveal
Freund fossilizes the loving one—but it does not come from Freude.
Pfeifer, Duden, and Grimm route Freund through Middle High German vriunt and Old High German friunt to a substantivized Germanic present participle of the love verb. Grimm also makes the structural contrast explicit: Feind is built on a different hate verb. The unveiling is grammatical rather than mystical—Freund and Feind look like a moral pair because both preserve agent-noun architecture, not because one ancient root split into love and hate.
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 56GRADE Aranked reveal
The Old English friend was a loving-agent noun—but not merely a modern intimate.
OED and Bosworth–Toller preserve the morphology behind frēond: an inherited nd-stem formation tied to the verb meaning free or love. The same sources then refuse a slogan-sized definition. Old English uses cover close companion, ally or non-enemy, relation, friend of God, friend versus foe, and friends acting as arbitrators. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 152r visibly preserves freondum in a hall filled with favored people at Beowulf 1018. The unveiling is not that friend secretly means love in every sentence; it is that a loving-agent fossil became a socially versatile noun before modern English existed.
RANK 58GRADE A-ranked reveal
Medieval Hass could be friendly competition.
Grimm’s DWB quotes Erec 2059: riders pursue a hawking contest, friuntlîchen striten, and share a bescheiden haʒ. The dictionary interprets this as rivalry in pursuing a goal. Modern Duden instead centers intense aversion and hostility. The contrast reveals a real historical side meaning without claiming that every medieval use was friendly or that Liebe and Hass share ancestry.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary102 CLAIM LINKS
Hate — definition, etymology, and first known use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly reference20 CLAIM LINKS
Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: A
John Aldrich et al. / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary16 CLAIM LINKS
Dairy — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary14 CLAIM LINKS
Dialogue — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary14 CLAIM LINKS
Humiliate — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary13 CLAIM LINKS
Adverb — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary13 CLAIM LINKS
Candid — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary13 CLAIM LINKS
Fiction — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗scholarly grammar13 CLAIM LINKS
Gothic Online, Lesson 8 — hatis and denominative hatizōn
Todd B. Krause · Jonathan Slocum / 2026
author or editorAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary13 CLAIM LINKS
Husband — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary12 CLAIM LINKS
Kindred — definition, etymology, and first known use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary12 CLAIM LINKS
Lord — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗0512
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDmanuscript
Heliand manuscript M, Beatitudes persecution clause
heti / heti / Heliand composition circa 830–840; Munich manuscript second half of the ninth century
Heliand — BSB Cgm 25, scan 41, folio 20r, heti locusreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The PESTE entry in the first edition of the Académie française dictionary uses quarantaine for imposed isolation after travel from a place suspected of plague.
quarantaine / quarantine / 1694
Le dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Tome 2 (M–Z), première éditionreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The CHIMES entry in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses calculate in instructions about clock-chime numbers.
calculate / calculate / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗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 sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The SYSTEM entry in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses Science for an organized branch of knowledge when defining a system of philosophy.
science / science / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
A banking-exchange passage in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses Salary for the banker’s compensation.
salary / salary / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s NOSOCOMIUM entry uses Hospital for an institution where poor sick people are attended and, if possible, cured.
hospital / hospital / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s NOTES in Musick entry describes a fixed group of six select syllables formerly used to distinguish degrees of sound.
select / select / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and scienceswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
John Harris’s FEE-FARM entry uses Legal to mark the specifically legal sense of the term.
legal / legal / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
A tide passage in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum uses check as a verb meaning restrain or impede.
check / check / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Source-reported title phrase in al-Khwārizmī's mathematical work
al-jabr / algebra / c. 825
Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: Areporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster first-known-use report
bride / bride / before the 12th century
Bride — Definition, Word History, and First Known Usereporting 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.