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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.
012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
etymon
A technical English noun for an earlier source form, a foreign donor, or a base used in composition or derivation.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounexact headword
étymon
A French linguistic term for an attested or reconstructed form used to explain the historical development of one or more words.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗024
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
etymon
an earlier source form, foreign donor, or derivational base
- DATE
- 1573–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
etymon
the literal or original meaning of a word
- DATE
- Latin scholarly use
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 2
French / Indo-European
étymon
attested or reconstructed form used to explain a word’s historical development
- DATE
- 1892–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Ancient Greek / Indo-European
ἔτυμον
étymonthe true sense of a word according to its origin
- DATE
- Later Ancient Greek
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 2
0316
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 12
openprobableexact word
Did French borrow étymon through Latin or directly from Greek?
CNRTL names Latin etymon as the immediate donor; the Académie calls the French word a learned borrowing from Greek. The graph preserves the Latin route as probable, not certain.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Must an etymon be the deepest reconstructable root?
No. Merriam-Webster defines it as an earlier same-language or ancestral form, a foreign loan source, or a word or morpheme used in composition or derivation.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Are etyma and etymons both permitted plurals?
Yes. Merriam-Webster records etyma and etymons, with etyma preserving the learned Greek-style plural.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Must a French étymon be directly attested?
No. Both CNRTL and the Académie explicitly define the explanatory form as attested or reconstructed/hypothetical.
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
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
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-.
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.
openboundaryposition text
Can icon be securely reconstructed beyond Greek eikōn?
Not from the reviewed evidence. Merriam-Webster calls the proposed deeper base uncertain and a Lithuanian comparison doubtful; Etymonline likewise stops at uncertain Greek prehistory.
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.
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.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 4
RANK 81GRADE Aexact ranked word
The etymon is not always the root of the root.
In technical use an etymon may be an earlier form, a foreign loan source, or a derivational word or morpheme—not necessarily the deepest reachable ancestor.
RANK 50GRADE Aranked reveal
The hostile adjective may belong to whet and threat, not hate—and its starred lemma still has a nominative.
Köbler's Old Saxon entry reports five written readings at three Heliand loci, including nominative hotie, huotia, and huoti, yet heads the entry hōti*. The asterisk therefore cannot be explained away as “no nominative survives.” More radically, the sources split at the root. UT groups hōti with hatōn and heti under the inherited hate etymon k̑ād-. Köbler's same entry cross-references hatōn but reconstructs a different *hwōtja- adjective beside *hwōtō “threat” and Pokorny's *kʷē̆d- / *kʷō̆d- family of boring, pricking, sharpening, whetting, and inciting. Munich hotie and hotean are directly visible in contexts of hostile minds and hostile intent; Cotton huotia, huotian, and huoti remain source-reported. The unveiling is not “hostility secretly means sharpened hate.” It is that rigorous etymology sometimes reveals two irreconcilable maps where a flat dictionary would print one arrow.
RANK 84GRADE Aranked reveal
Even the source-form can wear an asterisk.
French lexicography defines an étymon as attested or reconstructed/hypothetical. The unit used to explain a word’s history is not automatically a surviving word.
RANK 87GRADE Aranked reveal
The verb came before the science label.
Etymologize is reported from 1532 or the 1530s, while Etymonline dates etymology in the modern “science of linguistic analysis” sense to the 1640s.
0412
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary15 CLAIM LINKS
Emotion — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary10 CLAIM LINKS
Icon — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary9 CLAIM LINKS
Etymologize — Online Etymology Dictionary
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Arithmetic — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Dialogue — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Legislation — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Prologue — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary7 CLAIM LINKS
Etymologist — Online Etymology Dictionary
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
-ist — Online Etymology Dictionary
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary6 CLAIM LINKS
Algorism — Origin and history
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary5 CLAIM LINKS
-al — Online Etymology Dictionary
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗historical dictionary5 CLAIM LINKS
-ize — Online Etymology Dictionary
Douglas Harper / 2026
citation-key prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
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.