Etymological dictionary
Encyclopedia
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the OED
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

 and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.

Etymological dictionaries are the product of research in historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

. For a large number of words in any language, the etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply unknown. In such cases, depending on the space available, an etymological dictionary will present various suggestions and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and provide references to a full discussion in specialist literature.

The tradition of compiling "derivations" of words is pre-modern, found for example in Indian (nirukta
Nirukta
Nirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...

), Arabic (al-ištiqāq) and also in Western tradition (in works such as the Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD. It is the largest Byzantine lexicon and draws on many earlier grammatical, lexical and rhetorical works...

). Etymological dictionaries in the modern sense, however, appear only in the late 18th century (with 17th century predecessors such as Vossius' 1662 Etymologicum linguae Latinae or Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner was a Lincoln physician, lexicographer and etymologist.He graduated at Oxford University in 1646, and went to lived on the continent, graduating at the University of Heidelberg in 1654....

's 1671 Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae), with the understanding of sound laws and language change
Language change
Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. The effect on language over time is known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:...

 and their production was an important task of the "golden age of philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

" in the 19th century.

Notable examples

  • English language
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

    • Hoad, T.F., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology is a notable etymological dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.-Editions:...

      . Oxford
      Oxford
      The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

      , Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

       (1986).
    • George William Lemon
      George William Lemon
      The Reverend George William Lemon was the author of an early etymological dictionary of the English language, published in 1783.Lemon graduated at Queens College, Cambridge in 1748...

       the English etymologist and author of A derivative dictionary of the English language: in two alphabets, tracing the etymology of those English words, that are derived I. From the Greek, and Latin languages; II. From the Saxon, and other Northern tongues. London, Printed for G. Robinson (1783).
    • Eric Partridge
      Eric Partridge
      Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...

      , Origins: A short etymological dictionary of Modern English. New York
      New York City
      New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

      : Greenwich House (1958, 1959, 1961, 1966, 2008).
  • Dravidian languages
    Dravidian languages
    The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...

     (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Brahui et al.)
  • Finnish
    Finnish language
    Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

    • Suomen sanojen alkuperäThe Origin of Finnish Words (first volume, A—K 1992; second volume, L—P 1995; third volume, R—Ö 2000), Helsinki
      Helsinki
      Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

      , Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus and Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
  • German language
    German language
    German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

    • Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge is known for the Kluge etymological dictionary of the German language , which was first published in 1883....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Berlin
      Berlin
      Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

      : Walter de Gruyter (first edn. 1883, 21st edn. 1975).
  • Indo-Aryan languages
    Indo-Aryan languages
    The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

    • Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer is an Indo-Europeanist specialized on Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer is professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionary of Sanskrit....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (1986–2001)
  • Old Irish
    Old Irish language
    Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....

    • Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic , also known as Cormac's Glossary, is an early Irish glossary containing etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words, many of which are difficult or outdated. The shortest and earliest version of the work is ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin , king-bishop of Munster...

      , encyclopedic dictionary, 9th or 10th century
    • Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes was a French-Celtic linguist. After studying with Antoine Meillet, he was chairman of Celtic languages and literature at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He founded the journal Études Celtiques...

      , Lexique étymologique de l'irlandais ancien (first volume 1959; still incomplete), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and CNRC Éditions, Paris
      Paris
      Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

      .
  • Old Prussian
    • Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis was a highly distinguished Lithuanian Balticist, an expert on the Old Prussian language and Indo-European languages.-Biography:...

      , Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas (1988–1997), Vilnius
      Vilnius
      Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

      .
  • Icelandic language
    Icelandic language
    Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

    • Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók
  • Polish language
    Polish language
    Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

    • Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner was a Polish scholar of Slavic languages and literatures , philologist, lexicographer and historian of literature. He is among the most notable Slavicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first to prepare complete monographs on the history of Polish language...

      , Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, 1927 (9th edition, Warsaw
      Warsaw
      Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

      , Wiedza Powszechna, 2000).
    • Wiesław Boryś,"Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego", first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2005
  • Portuguese
    Portuguese language
    Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

    • Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      The Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa is a major reference dictionary for the Portuguese language, edited by Brazilian writer Antônio Houaiss....

       has much etymological information.
  • Proto-Indo-European language
    Proto-Indo-European language
    The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

    • Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck , born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist.-Biography:He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig .In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and...

      , A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, University of Chicago
      University of Chicago
      The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

       Press, 1949 (paperback edition 1988).
  • Scots language
    Scots language
    Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

    • John Jamieson
      John Jamieson
      John Jamieson FRSE was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary.The son of the Rev John Jamieson, Minister of the Associate Congregation, Duke Street, Glasgow, he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School.He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and subsequently...

      , An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808), revised 1879–97
  • Spanish
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

    • Guido Gómez de Silva "Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española" (ISBN 968-16-2812-8)
  • Turkish
    Turkish language
    Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

    • Clauson, Gerard Leslie Makins, Sir; "An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish", Oxford University Press, London, 1972.

Indo-European languages


Afroasiatic languages


Altaic languages


Austronesian languages


Bantu languages


Creole languages and conlangs


Uralic languages


Other languages and language families


An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the OED
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

 and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.

Etymological dictionaries are the product of research in historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

. For a large number of words in any language, the etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply unknown. In such cases, depending on the space available, an etymological dictionary will present various suggestions and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and provide references to a full discussion in specialist literature.

The tradition of compiling "derivations" of words is pre-modern, found for example in Indian (nirukta
Nirukta
Nirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...

), Arabic (al-ištiqāq) and also in Western tradition (in works such as the Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD. It is the largest Byzantine lexicon and draws on many earlier grammatical, lexical and rhetorical works...

). Etymological dictionaries in the modern sense, however, appear only in the late 18th century (with 17th century predecessors such as Vossius' 1662 Etymologicum linguae Latinae or Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner was a Lincoln physician, lexicographer and etymologist.He graduated at Oxford University in 1646, and went to lived on the continent, graduating at the University of Heidelberg in 1654....

's 1671 Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae), with the understanding of sound laws and language change
Language change
Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. The effect on language over time is known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:...

 and their production was an important task of the "golden age of philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

" in the 19th century.

Notable examples

  • English language
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

    • Hoad, T.F., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology is a notable etymological dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.-Editions:...

      . Oxford
      Oxford
      The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

      , Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

       (1986).
    • George William Lemon
      George William Lemon
      The Reverend George William Lemon was the author of an early etymological dictionary of the English language, published in 1783.Lemon graduated at Queens College, Cambridge in 1748...

       the English etymologist and author of A derivative dictionary of the English language: in two alphabets, tracing the etymology of those English words, that are derived I. From the Greek, and Latin languages; II. From the Saxon, and other Northern tongues. London, Printed for G. Robinson (1783).
    • Eric Partridge
      Eric Partridge
      Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...

      , Origins: A short etymological dictionary of Modern English. New York
      New York City
      New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

      : Greenwich House (1958, 1959, 1961, 1966, 2008).
  • Dravidian languages
    Dravidian languages
    The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...

     (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Brahui et al.)
  • Finnish
    Finnish language
    Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

    • Suomen sanojen alkuperäThe Origin of Finnish Words (first volume, A—K 1992; second volume, L—P 1995; third volume, R—Ö 2000), Helsinki
      Helsinki
      Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

      , Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus and Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
  • German language
    German language
    German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

    • Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge is known for the Kluge etymological dictionary of the German language , which was first published in 1883....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Berlin
      Berlin
      Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

      : Walter de Gruyter (first edn. 1883, 21st edn. 1975).
  • Indo-Aryan languages
    Indo-Aryan languages
    The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

    • Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer is an Indo-Europeanist specialized on Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer is professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionary of Sanskrit....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (1986–2001)
  • Old Irish
    Old Irish language
    Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....

    • Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic , also known as Cormac's Glossary, is an early Irish glossary containing etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words, many of which are difficult or outdated. The shortest and earliest version of the work is ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin , king-bishop of Munster...

      , encyclopedic dictionary, 9th or 10th century
    • Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes was a French-Celtic linguist. After studying with Antoine Meillet, he was chairman of Celtic languages and literature at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He founded the journal Études Celtiques...

      , Lexique étymologique de l'irlandais ancien (first volume 1959; still incomplete), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and CNRC Éditions, Paris
      Paris
      Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

      .
  • Old Prussian
    • Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis was a highly distinguished Lithuanian Balticist, an expert on the Old Prussian language and Indo-European languages.-Biography:...

      , Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas (1988–1997), Vilnius
      Vilnius
      Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

      .
  • Icelandic language
    Icelandic language
    Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

    • Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók
  • Polish language
    Polish language
    Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

    • Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner was a Polish scholar of Slavic languages and literatures , philologist, lexicographer and historian of literature. He is among the most notable Slavicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first to prepare complete monographs on the history of Polish language...

      , Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, 1927 (9th edition, Warsaw
      Warsaw
      Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

      , Wiedza Powszechna, 2000).
    • Wiesław Boryś,"Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego", first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2005
  • Portuguese
    Portuguese language
    Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

    • Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      The Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa is a major reference dictionary for the Portuguese language, edited by Brazilian writer Antônio Houaiss....

       has much etymological information.
  • Proto-Indo-European language
    Proto-Indo-European language
    The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

    • Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck , born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist.-Biography:He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig .In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and...

      , A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, University of Chicago
      University of Chicago
      The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

       Press, 1949 (paperback edition 1988).
  • Scots language
    Scots language
    Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

    • John Jamieson
      John Jamieson
      John Jamieson FRSE was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary.The son of the Rev John Jamieson, Minister of the Associate Congregation, Duke Street, Glasgow, he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School.He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and subsequently...

      , An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808), revised 1879–97
  • Spanish
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

    • Guido Gómez de Silva "Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española" (ISBN 968-16-2812-8)
  • Turkish
    Turkish language
    Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

    • Clauson, Gerard Leslie Makins, Sir; "An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish", Oxford University Press, London, 1972.

Indo-European languages


Afroasiatic languages


Altaic languages


Austronesian languages


Bantu languages


Creole languages and conlangs


Uralic languages


Other languages and language families


An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the OED
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

 and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.

Etymological dictionaries are the product of research in historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

. For a large number of words in any language, the etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply unknown. In such cases, depending on the space available, an etymological dictionary will present various suggestions and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and provide references to a full discussion in specialist literature.

The tradition of compiling "derivations" of words is pre-modern, found for example in Indian (nirukta
Nirukta
Nirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...

), Arabic (al-ištiqāq) and also in Western tradition (in works such as the Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD. It is the largest Byzantine lexicon and draws on many earlier grammatical, lexical and rhetorical works...

). Etymological dictionaries in the modern sense, however, appear only in the late 18th century (with 17th century predecessors such as Vossius' 1662 Etymologicum linguae Latinae or Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner was a Lincoln physician, lexicographer and etymologist.He graduated at Oxford University in 1646, and went to lived on the continent, graduating at the University of Heidelberg in 1654....

's 1671 Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae), with the understanding of sound laws and language change
Language change
Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. The effect on language over time is known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:...

 and their production was an important task of the "golden age of philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

" in the 19th century.

Notable examples

  • English language
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

    • Hoad, T.F., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
      The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology is a notable etymological dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.-Editions:...

      . Oxford
      Oxford
      The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

      , Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press
      Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

       (1986).
    • George William Lemon
      George William Lemon
      The Reverend George William Lemon was the author of an early etymological dictionary of the English language, published in 1783.Lemon graduated at Queens College, Cambridge in 1748...

       the English etymologist and author of A derivative dictionary of the English language: in two alphabets, tracing the etymology of those English words, that are derived I. From the Greek, and Latin languages; II. From the Saxon, and other Northern tongues. London, Printed for G. Robinson (1783).
    • Eric Partridge
      Eric Partridge
      Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...

      , Origins: A short etymological dictionary of Modern English. New York
      New York City
      New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

      : Greenwich House (1958, 1959, 1961, 1966, 2008).
  • Dravidian languages
    Dravidian languages
    The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...

     (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Brahui et al.)
  • Finnish
    Finnish language
    Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

    • Suomen sanojen alkuperäThe Origin of Finnish Words (first volume, A—K 1992; second volume, L—P 1995; third volume, R—Ö 2000), Helsinki
      Helsinki
      Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

      , Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus and Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
  • German language
    German language
    German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

    • Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge
      Friedrich Kluge is known for the Kluge etymological dictionary of the German language , which was first published in 1883....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Berlin
      Berlin
      Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

      : Walter de Gruyter (first edn. 1883, 21st edn. 1975).
  • Indo-Aryan languages
    Indo-Aryan languages
    The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

    • Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer
      Manfred Mayrhofer is an Indo-Europeanist specialized on Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer is professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionary of Sanskrit....

      , Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (1986–2001)
  • Old Irish
    Old Irish language
    Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....

    • Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic
      Sanas Cormaic , also known as Cormac's Glossary, is an early Irish glossary containing etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words, many of which are difficult or outdated. The shortest and earliest version of the work is ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin , king-bishop of Munster...

      , encyclopedic dictionary, 9th or 10th century
    • Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes
      Joseph Vendryes was a French-Celtic linguist. After studying with Antoine Meillet, he was chairman of Celtic languages and literature at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He founded the journal Études Celtiques...

      , Lexique étymologique de l'irlandais ancien (first volume 1959; still incomplete), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and CNRC Éditions, Paris
      Paris
      Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

      .
  • Old Prussian
    • Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis
      Vytautas Mažiulis was a highly distinguished Lithuanian Balticist, an expert on the Old Prussian language and Indo-European languages.-Biography:...

      , Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas (1988–1997), Vilnius
      Vilnius
      Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

      .
  • Icelandic language
    Icelandic language
    Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

    • Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók
  • Polish language
    Polish language
    Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

    • Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner
      Aleksander Brückner was a Polish scholar of Slavic languages and literatures , philologist, lexicographer and historian of literature. He is among the most notable Slavicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first to prepare complete monographs on the history of Polish language...

      , Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, 1927 (9th edition, Warsaw
      Warsaw
      Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

      , Wiedza Powszechna, 2000).
    • Wiesław Boryś,"Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego", first edition, Kraków
      Kraków
      Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

      , Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2005
  • Portuguese
    Portuguese language
    Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

    • Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa
      The Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa is a major reference dictionary for the Portuguese language, edited by Brazilian writer Antônio Houaiss....

       has much etymological information.
  • Proto-Indo-European language
    Proto-Indo-European language
    The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

    • Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck
      Carl Darling Buck , born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist.-Biography:He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig .In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and...

      , A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, University of Chicago
      University of Chicago
      The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

       Press, 1949 (paperback edition 1988).
  • Scots language
    Scots language
    Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

    • John Jamieson
      John Jamieson
      John Jamieson FRSE was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary.The son of the Rev John Jamieson, Minister of the Associate Congregation, Duke Street, Glasgow, he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School.He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and subsequently...

      , An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808), revised 1879–97
  • Spanish
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

    • Guido Gómez de Silva "Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española" (ISBN 968-16-2812-8)
  • Turkish
    Turkish language
    Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

    • Clauson, Gerard Leslie Makins, Sir; "An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish", Oxford University Press, London, 1972.

Indo-European languages


Afroasiatic languages


Altaic languages


Austronesian languages


Bantu languages


Creole languages and conlangs


Uralic languages


Other languages and language families



  • Internet Archive Search: Etymological Dictionary Etymological Dictionaries in English at the Internet archive
    Internet Archive
    The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

  • Internet Archive Search: Etymologisches Wörterbuch Etymological Dictionaries in German at the Internet archive
    Internet Archive
    The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

  • Online Etymology Dictionary (see also its Wikipedia article
    Online Etymology Dictionary
    The Online Etymology Dictionary is an online dictionary that describes the origins of English-language words. The abbreviation, OED, coincides with the frequently used acronym for the Oxford English Dictionary.-Description:...

    )
  • The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
     
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