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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 LOCAL5 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Word”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
WordEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
Semantic loan from Koine Greek λόγος (lógos).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗WordEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Ellipsis of Microsoft Word; from word.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗wordEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English word, from Old English word, from Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurdą (“word”), from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰom (“word”), from *werh₁- (“to say, speak”). Doublet of verb, verve, and vort; further related to vrata. Cognates Cognate with Scots wird (“word”), North Frisian uurd, Uurt, wurd, wårde, wür (“word”), Saterland Frisian Woud, Wud (“word”), West Frisian wurd (“word”), Alemannic German wort, wourd, wuart, wòrt, wört (“word”), Bavarian boart, bort, bört, Wurt (“word”), Cimbrian bóart, bort (“word”), Dutch woord (“word”), German Wort (“word”), German Low German Woord, Woort (“word”), Limburgish waord, Woërt (“word”), Luxembourgish Wuert (“word”), Mòcheno bourt (“word”), Vilamovian wiüt, wuyt (“word”), Yiddish וואָרט (vort, “word”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ord (“word”), Elfdalian uord (“word”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Scanian orð (“word”), Gutnish ård (“word”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (waurd, “word”); also Ancient Greek ῥητός (rhētós, “spoken, stipulated”); also Latin verbum (“word”), Umbrian 𐌖𐌄𐌓𐌚𐌀𐌋𐌄 (uerfale, “temple”), Ancient Greek εἴρω (eírō, “to say, speak, tell”), Latgalian vuords (“name; word”), Latvian vārds (“name; word”), Lithuanian var̃das (“name”), Russian врать (vratʹ, “to lie”), Serbo-Croatian ва̏рати, vȁrati (“to cheat, deceive, trick, swindle; to be mistaken”), Armenian հորջորջել (horǰorǰel, “to call, name”), Ashkun vīri (“word”), Kamkata-viri vëri, viri (“word”), Prasuni veri, verī, vëre, vëri (“word”), Sanskrit व्रत (vrata, “command; law; will”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗wordEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English word, from Old English word, from Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurdą (“word”), from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰom (“word”), from *werh₁- (“to say, speak”). Doublet of verb, verve, and vort; further related to vrata. Cognates Cognate with Scots wird (“word”), North Frisian uurd, Uurt, wurd, wårde, wür (“word”), Saterland Frisian Woud, Wud (“word”), West Frisian wurd (“word”), Alemannic German wort, wourd, wuart, wòrt, wört (“word”), Bavarian boart, bort, bört, Wurt (“word”), Cimbrian bóart, bort (“word”), Dutch woord (“word”), German Wort (“word”), German Low German Woord, Woort (“word”), Limburgish waord, Woërt (“word”), Luxembourgish Wuert (“word”), Mòcheno bourt (“word”), Vilamovian wiüt, wuyt (“word”), Yiddish וואָרט (vort, “word”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ord (“word”), Elfdalian uord (“word”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Scanian orð (“word”), Gutnish ård (“word”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌳 (waurd, “word”); also Ancient Greek ῥητός (rhētós, “spoken, stipulated”); also Latin verbum (“word”), Umbrian 𐌖𐌄𐌓𐌚𐌀𐌋𐌄 (uerfale, “temple”), Ancient Greek εἴρω (eírō, “to say, speak, tell”), Latgalian vuords (“name; word”), Latvian vārds (“name; word”), Lithuanian var̃das (“name”), Russian врать (vratʹ, “to lie”), Serbo-Croatian ва̏рати, vȁrati (“to cheat, deceive, trick, swindle; to be mistaken”), Armenian հորջորջել (horǰorǰel, “to call, name”), Ashkun vīri (“word”), Kamkata-viri vëri, viri (“word”), Prasuni veri, verī, vëre, vëri (“word”), Sanskrit व्रत (vrata, “command; law; will”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗wordEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Variant of worth (“to become, turn into, grow, get”), from Middle English worthen, from Old English weorþan (“to turn into, become, grow”), from Proto-West Germanic *werþan, from Proto-Germanic *werþaną (“to turn, turn into, become”). More at worth § Verb.
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, 2024MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
word
A meaningful spoken or written unit; an inherited English form whose Germanic branch is cognate with Latin verbum rather than borrowed from it.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗-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 ↗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 ↗adverb
A grammatical class commonly modifying verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, phrases, clauses, or sentences; the English term continues Latin adverbium.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗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 ↗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 ↗alpaca
An English animal and fiber word borrowed through Spanish from Aymara allpaqa / allphaqa.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗arithmetic
The art or practice of counting and calculation; transmitted from Greek arithmos “number” through Latin and French.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗avocado
An English reshaping of Spanish aguacate from Nahuatl āhuacatl, a word documented with both avocado and testicle senses.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗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 ↗bride
A woman about to be or recently married; inherited from Old English brȳd and directly preserved inside bridegroom.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗bridegroom
A man about to be or recently married; remodeled from bridegome after the older man-word gome became opaque.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
word
a meaningful spoken or written unit; an utterance or expression
- DATE
- before 12th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
word
word, utterance, expression
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
word
word, utterance, speech
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
*kad- / *kad-ï
fir tree; reconstructed base proposed in the boat-word history
- DATE
- Proto-Turkic analysis
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
*mūs-
mouse; also the family behind specialized muscle words
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 4
*wer-dho-
something spoken; word
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European suffixed full grade
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 5
*wr̥-dho-
something spoken; word
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European suffixed zero grade
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
*wurdam
word; something spoken
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic horizon
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
*ḱh₂d-es-
a proposed formation connecting grief, pain, care, mourning, and hatred words
- DATE
- proposed Proto-Indo-European formation
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 19
-logie
bound learned element visible in words such as etimologie
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
adverb
a word class modifying verbs, adjectives, adverbs, phrases, clauses, or sentences
- DATE
- 15th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
adverbium
adverb; a word attached to another word or predicate
- DATE
- Latin grammatical tradition
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
Was English word borrowed from Latin verbum?
No. English word is inherited through Old English and Germanic; Latin verbum is an akin or cognate branch under the shared speaking root, not the donor.
Is *werh1- an attested first human word?
No. The asterisk marks a comparative reconstruction, and the reviewed source stops at the speaking root rather than identifying any spoken first word.
Can aguacate be securely pushed deeper than āhuacatl?
Not from the reviewed sources. The institutional dictionaries reach the Nahuatl word and its historical witnesses but do not establish a deeper lexical ancestor.
Is betroth built on truth or troth?
The historical base is Middle English trouth or trouthe, where the modern truth and troth spellings were not yet cleanly separated; mapping it to only one modern headword overstates the evidence.
Does boy securely descend from a word for ox hide?
No. American Heritage offers a possible chain through a fettered person, fetter, Latin restraint collar, and Greek ox hide; Oxford labels the origin unknown.
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.
Is calculus securely a diminutive of calx “limestone”?
Not securely. The traditional analysis is morphologically and semantically irregular; an alternative links Latin calculus and Greek stone words through a possible shared substrate source.
Did candidates claim moral purity?
The whitened toga is historical and lexical. Reading it as a guaranteed moral-purity claim goes beyond what the word formation alone proves.
Is *lˤra the final word on the ancestry of tea?
It is the final reviewed reconstruction in this dossier, not a declaration that no deeper hypothesis exists. No unique deeper form is promoted until a competing analysis is encoded with direct evidence.
Exactly which Romance language handed the word to English?
French and Italian stages are both central in reference accounts; a single linear donor route can overstate the surviving evidence.
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.
Does the English record begin in 1588 or the 1590s?
The reports differ slightly: Merriam-Webster gives 1588 and Etymonline gives the 1590s. Neither date proves the word was coined then.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 12
Word and verb are cousins, not a borrowing pair.
English word descends through Germanic *wurdam and zero-grade *wr-dho-. English verb arrives through French from Latin verbum and the full-grade *wer-dho- branch. They meet only at reconstructed *werh1- “speak.”
Robot named forced labor before machinery.
The machine word begins in Czech robota: compulsory labor, corvée, or drudgery.
Etymology calls itself the “true account.”
Greek ἔτυμος “true, real” joined -λογία “account or study”; even that truth-word reaches a reconstructed root.
Andean neighbors need not be linguistic cousins.
Alpaca comes from Aymara while llama comes from Quechua: the words travel through Spanish from different families.
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.
-logy never simply meant “the study of.”
The bound form’s recorded range includes expression and discourse as well as doctrine, theory, science, and study. Its trail reaches Greek logos—word, speech, account, reckoning, reason—rather than a prehistoric word meaning “science.”
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.
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.
The d in kindred is an intruder—and kind is not in the word.
Kindred is kin plus a fossilized native element meaning a condition or state. One branch reaches the birth root; the other reaches a fit-together root. The modern d arrived between n and r after the compound already existed.
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.
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.
One corpus hit written hatia is not the hate verb at all.
The May 2026 Corpus Oudfries search returns six records under word or lemma hatia, but spelling alone creates a trap. In Brokmer B 101, Buma explicitly identifies hatia as atia "rear" with prothetic h; Nijdam's translation confirms a poor mother unable to feed her children. That token is excluded from the hate lineage. The five relevant records then reveal the genuine verb's own range: harm or hindrance on an army road, legal adversity, and God hating perjury, lying speech, and false witnesses. The contrarian truth is therefore philological twice over: one identical surface belongs elsewhere, while the inherited verb itself extends beyond private feeling.
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
Word — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Word — American Heritage Dictionary
American Heritage Dictionary Editors / 2022
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Check — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Science — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Guest — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Calculus — Word History and Etymology Note
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: A
John Aldrich et al. / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Wife — Definition and Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Checkmate — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Dairy — Definition, Word History, and First Known Use
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Host — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗Chai — Definition and Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for word
word / word / before 12th century
Word — Definition, Word History, and First Known Useexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗The first edition of the Académie française dictionary prints DESASTRE as a headword and defines it as a disastrous accident or misfortune.
désastre / disaster / 1694
Le dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Tome 1 (A–L), première éditionreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗The first edition of the Académie française dictionary prints HOSTEL as a headword in the historical French family later normalized as hôtel.
hôtel / hotel / 1694
Le dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Tome 1 (A–L), première éditionreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗The first edition of the Académie française dictionary prints SINCERE as a headword and opens with the senses true and frank.
sincère / sincere / 1694
Le dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Tome 2 (M–Z), première éditionreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗John Harris’s Lexicon technicum prints ALGEBRA as a headword and identifies it as an analytic art concerned with equations.
algebra / algebra / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗John Harris’s Lexicon technicum prints MUSCLE as a headword and defines its role in voluntary animal motion.
muscle / muscle / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗John Harris’s Lexicon technicum prints ETYMOLOGY as a headword and defines it as the part of grammar concerned with words’ origins and true signification.
etymology / etymology / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and scienceswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗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 ↗The photographed English title page prints the plural headword in “Rossum's Universal Robots.”
robot / robot / 1923
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodramareporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗Source-reported Latin lexical record
calculus / calculate / Latin antiquity
Calculus — Word History and Etymology Notereporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗Codex Argenteus, Matthew 5:43
fijan / fijan / early 6th-century witness, source-reported
Gothic Bible word analysis — Matthew 5:43, fiais and fiandreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗Codex Argenteus, Luke 6:22
fijan / fijan / early 6th-century witness, source-reported
Gothic Bible word analysis — Luke 6:22, fijandreporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗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.