GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
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.
012
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
lesson
A unit of instruction or something learned, descending through a word that first named an act or selection of reading.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verb, adjectivecontrarian claim
select
To choose or mark out from a group, borrowed from Latin selectus and seligere, literally gathering apart.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗023
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
lesson
a unit of instruction or something learned
- DATE
- 13th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
lesson / lessoun
a reading, assigned text, or unit of instruction
- DATE
- Middle English, 13th–15th centuries
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Anglo-French / Indo-European
leçon
a reading or lesson
- DATE
- Anglo-French, c. 1066–1500
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
035
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did lesson originally mean a spoken class?
Its secure ancestry points first to reading: Anglo-French leçon and Late Latin lectio, an act or selection of reading from legere. Instruction and learned-experience senses develop from that base.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does Portuguese chá disprove the sea-versus-land rule?
It disproves the rule as a universal law, not the global tendency. Portuguese merchants used a maritime route yet Portuguese retained a cha-type form.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is select descended from English lecture or lesson?
No. The English words are cousins. Select comes from Latin selectus and seligere; lecture and lesson take other Latin formations that independently reach legere.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 203GRADE Aexact ranked word
A lesson began as a reading.
Anglo-French leçon and Late Latin lectio name reading before the word expands into instruction and something learned from experience.
RANK 208GRADE A-ranked reveal
To select is to gather apart.
Latin seligere combines se- “apart” with legere “gather, select.” The same gathering verb sits behind lecture, lesson, legend, and collect.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
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.