Welcome to Origin of the words
Thoughts, stories, and ideas from this author.
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Origin of the word "Hate"
A compact English emotion Hate is a short English word for a strong feeling. As a verb it means to dislike someone or something with real hostility, not mere preference. As a noun it names that feelin
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Origin of the word "Full"
A small word with a large job English speakers use full for almost any kind of completeness. A glass is full when it holds as much as it can. A report is full when nothing essential is left out. After
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Origin of the word "Stupid"
A familiar insult with an older freeze In ordinary English, stupid names a person who seems slow to understand, or an act that looks careless of obvious facts. It also attaches to ideas, rules, and pl
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Origin of the word "News"
Fresh reports, old grammar In everyday English, news is the report of what has just happened: a bulletin, a headline, a rumor that turns out to be true. It can name the day's events as a mass, or any
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Origin of the word "Line"
A mark, a rope, and a row In modern English, line does an unusual amount of work. It names the stroke a pen leaves, the cord a builder stretches, the people waiting at a counter, a family stretching b
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Origin of the word "Answer"
A reply that still carries an oath In ordinary English, an answer is what you give back: a spoken or written reply, a solution on an exam, a legal filing that meets a complaint point by point. The ver
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Origin of the word "Team"
English speakers now reach for team when they mean a group that works or competes as one unit: a product squad, a cricket eleven, two horses still harnessed to a wagon. The office reading feels recent
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Origin of the word "Front"
The side that faces outward In ordinary English, front is the forward face of a thing: the wall of a house with the door, the first row of a crowd, the end of a vehicle that leads the way. The same sh
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Origin of the word "Honey"
What the word names now In everyday English, honey is first of all the thick, sweet food bees make from flower nectar. Jars on a shelf, comb from a hive, and the pale gold to brown color of that food
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Origin of the word "Power"
Ability, authority, and energy In present-day English, power covers several ideas that still share one core: the capacity to produce an effect. It can mean bodily strength, the right to command, polit
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Origin of the word "Free"
What speakers mean by it now In current English, free covers several related ideas rather than one tight definition. A person may be free of slavery, prison, or another person’s will. A road may be fr
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Origin of the word "Cool"
A word for temperature, temperament, and approval English speakers still use cool for a moderate chill: air that is not warm, yet not the bite of frost. The same form describes a person who stays comp
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Origin of the word "Half"
One of two parts, give or take In current English, half is the usual name for one of two parts that make a whole, and also for a part that is only roughly that size. It is a noun in half the work, an
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Origin of the word "Couple"
Two, and also a bond Today English couple names a pair: two people in a relationship, two items taken together, or, more loosely, a small handful. As a verb it still means to join things, and in some
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Origin of the word "High"
English speakers reach for high whenever something sits far above a baseline: a cliff, a price, a fever, a note, an office, a mood. Those uses look like a heap of separate words, but they are one inhe
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