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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.
018
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
woman
An adult female human being; historically a compound of Old English wīf, woman, and mann, human being or person.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
bride
A woman about to be or recently married; inherited from Old English brȳd and directly preserved inside bridegroom.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun and adjectivecontrarian claim
dairy
Milk, milk products, or a place and enterprise devoted to them; historically built on the occupational word for a woman managing milk and food production.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun and adjectivehistorical form
female
A sex-class term borrowed through French from Latin fēmella, a diminutive of fēmina, with its English spelling later remodeled under male.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
girl
A female child or young woman; in Middle English the word could denote a child or young person of either sex.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
lady
A woman of rank or a polite term for a woman; historically from an Old English household compound joining loaf with a kneading element.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
wife
A married woman in relation to a spouse; inherited from Old English wīf, whose historical field included woman more generally.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
wīb
An Old High German word occurring in woman and wife expressions; it continues into Middle High German wīp and modern German Weib, whose usage has changed sharply.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗0212
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
woman
adult female human being
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*dhē-mnā-
woman or nursing female formation
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European suffixed reduced formation
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
German / Indo-European
Weib
woman; wife; increasingly discriminatory term
- DATE
- Modern German
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
bride
a woman about to be or recently married
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
deie
woman in charge of milking and making butter and cheese
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
fēmina
woman; female
- DATE
- Latin
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
girl
female child; young woman
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Tocharian B / Indo-European
kwīpe
shame; modesty; woman comparison
- DATE
- Tocharian B
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 0
Present-Day English / Indo-European
lady
woman of rank; polite term for a woman
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
wif
woman; wife
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Present-Day English / Indo-European
wife
married woman in relation to a spouse
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
womman
woman
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0312
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 6
resolvedestablishedexact word
Does woman come from womb plus man?
No. The historical form is Old English wīfman, built from wīf, woman or wife, and mann, human being or person.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did man inside wīfman already mean only an adult male?
No. In this compound man carries its older human-being or person sense.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Can Freund historically refer to a woman?
Yes. Grimm records older and contextual uses of the masculine noun for female referents. Grammatical gender and referent sex are not identical.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did dairy originally name milk as a substance?
No. The earliest reviewed route names a milk-production place built on the woman responsible for the work.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did wife always mean only a female spouse?
No. Old English wīf and Middle English wif could mean woman as well as wife.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was Old High German wīb already the modern German insult?
The sources do not license that projection. Duden marks modern Weib increasingly discriminatory, while Old High German records preserve wīb in ordinary old-woman and married-woman expressions.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 6
RANK 112GRADE Aexact ranked word
Woman does not contain womb.
Old English wīfman combines wīf, woman or wife, with mann, human being or person; contraction hid the compound in plain sight.
RANK 15GRADE Aranked reveal
The modern stigma of Weib is not the timeless nature of wīb.
Duden marks modern Weib increasingly discriminatory, while Old High German records preserve wīb in old-woman and wife expressions; the deeper origin remains unresolved.
RANK 121GRADE Acontrarian claim
Wife once meant woman more broadly.
Old English wīf meant woman or wife and survives inside wīfman, the ancestor of woman; its deeper source remains uncertain.
RANK 122GRADE Aranked reveal
Girl could once refer to a boy.
Middle English girle could denote a child of either sex; later English narrowed it toward a female child or young woman.
RANK 131GRADE Aranked reveal
Only half of bridegroom reaches the earthling root.
Bride continues Old English brȳd and stops at a Germanic comparison horizon; guma, the second compound element, follows the separate earthling branch.
RANK 132GRADE Acontrarian claim
Dairy begins with a woman, then a baker, then dough.
The milk-production place is formed on deie, a woman managing milk, continuing Old English dǣge, female baker or servant, in the dough and shaping family.
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.