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.
0111
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
tree
A perennial woody plant; inherited through Old English trēow and Germanic *trewam from the firmness-and-wood branch of *deru-.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
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
avocado
An English reshaping of Spanish aguacate from Nahuatl āhuacatl, a word documented with both avocado and testicle senses.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗verbhistorical form
betroth
To promise in marriage; a Middle English prefixed formation built on the same historical noun that yielded truth and troth.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
kayık
The Turkish word for a small boat, continued from Old Turkic kayguk and analyzed within an internal Turkic history rather than the Inuit qayaq family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
mango
English mango, recorded by 1582, came through Portuguese manga, probably from Malayalam māṅṅa. The reviewed route stops there rather than forcing a deeper Dravidian reconstruction.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
troth
Pledged fidelity, good faith, or betrothal; a surviving historical twin of truth rather than a later poetic fabrication.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
truce
A temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement; inherited through a Middle English plural of a word for agreement or pledge.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivehistorical form
true
In accord with fact, reality, or a standard; historically an inherited word whose older center is firmness, faithfulness, and steadfastness.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
trust
Assured reliance, confidence, or responsibility; probably entering Middle English from Scandinavian material meaning confidence and firmness.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
truth
Conformity with fact or reality; inherited through Old English trēowþ, whose recorded semantic field includes fidelity, loyalty, and constancy.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗029
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
tree
perennial woody plant; branching structure
- DATE
- before 12th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
tree
tree, wood
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*deru-
*deru- / *dreu-be firm, solid, steadfast; wood, tree
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European horizon
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 7
Proto-Turkic / Turkic
*kad- / *kad-ï
fir tree; reconstructed base proposed in the boat-word history
- DATE
- Proto-Turkic analysis
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*trewam
tree, wood
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic horizon
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Spanish / Indo-European
aguacate
avocado fruit or tree
- DATE
- Spanish
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Present-Day English / Indo-European
avocado
the fruit or tree of Persea americana
- DATE
- 1696–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
mango
the fruit or tree of Mangifera indica
- DATE
- 1582–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Old English / Indo-European
trēow
tree, wood
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0314
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 5
resolvedestablishedexact word
Is tree the literal ancestor of true?
No. Tree and true share the reconstructed *deru- family but travel through different Germanic formations and different senses.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did *deru- mean only tree or wood?
No. The published reconstructed semantic range begins with being firm, solid, or steadfast and extends to wood and tree.
openprobableposition text
Was the relative sense inherited or independently strengthened in Germanic branches?
The sources establish the sense across German and Nordic evidence but do not recover one complete prehistoric semantic tree.
openproposedposition text
Does kayguk continue *kad- “fir tree” or a *kay- “turn, bend” base?
The reviewed article argues for a *kad- / *kad-ï analysis and discusses the older *kay- account. The historical kayguk stage is secure; the deeper derivation remains proposed.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does true descend from tree?
No. True and tree are parallel descendants in different branches that meet at reconstructed *deru-; the modern tree noun is not a parent of true.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 9
RANK 103GRADE Aexact ranked word
Tree and truth meet at firmness, not fantasy.
Tree follows the wood branch through Germanic *trewam; truth follows the fidelity branch through *treuwaz and *treuwithō. They meet at *deru- “firm, solid, steadfast; wood, tree.”
RANK 2GRADE Aranked reveal
Truth began with firmness and fidelity.
Before truth centered factual correspondence, its family named what was firm, faithful, and steadfast.
RANK 77GRADE Aranked reveal
Same sound, same object, different ancestry.
Turkish kayık reaches Old Turkic kayguk; kayak reaches Inuit qayaq. Their uncanny agreement is chance resemblance, not evidence of contact or a common root.
RANK 100GRADE Aranked reveal
True was steadfast before it was merely factual.
Old English trēowe meant faithful; its Germanic *treuwaz branch reaches reconstructed *deru- “firm, solid, steadfast; wood, tree.” Factual accuracy is real, but not the whole history.
RANK 101GRADE Aranked reveal
To betroth is to bind by one’s truth or troth.
Middle English bitrouthen visibly combines bi-/be- with trouth, the historical fidelity noun before modern truth and troth were cleanly separated.
RANK 102GRADE Aranked reveal
A truce was grammatically plural.
Modern singular truce continues Middle English trewes, the plural of an agreement noun from Old English trēow “fidelity.” A ceasefire is historically a set of pledged terms.
RANK 153GRADE Aranked reveal
Trust is confidence made firm.
The likely Scandinavian noun belongs to a Germanic family of firmness and faith. Its exact Old Norse donor remains probable rather than certain.
RANK 154GRADE Aranked reveal
Truth and troth were once one word family in plain sight.
Middle English trouth and Old English trēowþ covered truth, faith, loyalty, and pledged fidelity before the modern words specialized.
RANK 191GRADE Aranked reveal
Legal is not descended from English law.
The meanings meet; the family trees do not. legal is Latin, while law is Germanic and Scandinavian.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
052
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Merriam-Webster first-known-use report for tree
tree / tree / before 12th century
Tree — Definition, Word History, and First Known Useexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Seventeenth-century figurative tree-enemy use
fiende / fiende / 1651
Svenska Akademiens ordbok — FIENDEreporting 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.