Posts in Origin of the word
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Origin of the word "Behind"
A locator with several jobs In present-day English, behind marks what sits at the rear or on the far side of a reference point. A wall can hide a garden. A runner can finish last in the field. A clock
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Origin of the word "Child"
What the word covers now In present-day English, child does two jobs that speakers rarely bother to separate. It names a young human who has not yet reached adulthood, whether that line is drawn at pu
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Origin of the word "Sister"
A word that still means kin first In ordinary English, a sister is a female sibling: a daughter of the same parents, or of one parent in common. That household sense has never left the language, but i
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Origin of the word "Stand"
A verb that holds still and does many other jobs In modern English, to stand is first of all to be upright on the feet. The same verb also means to remain in place, to stay valid, to tolerate somethin
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Origin of the word "Side"
The long face of a thing In present-day English, side is the lateral surface of an object, the left or right half of a body, a party in an argument or a match, one aspect of a problem, and, in America
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Origin of the word "Nobody"
What speakers mean by it now In present-day English, nobody is first of all an indefinite pronoun: not any person, the negative counterpart of somebody. It fills the same grammatical slot as no one. S
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Origin of the word "Game"
Pleasure before points In present-day English, game most often names a pastime with rules: a match, a board, a video title, a round of cards. The same noun can mean wild animals hunted for food or spo
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Origin of the word "Fire"
English fire is the ordinary name for combustion: flame, heat, smoke, and the event of something burning. It is also the hearth or campfire you tend, the blaze that destroys a building, and, by extens
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Origin of the word "Married"
A status word with a borrowed spine In everyday English, married names a legal or customary state: a person who has a spouse. It is also the past tense and past participle of marry, so the same form c
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Origin of the word "Rest"
Anyone looking up the origin of the word rest will find two dictionary entries, not one. English uses the same spelling for a pause from work, a support under a chin, a silence in a bar of music, and
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Origin of the word "Husband"
A spouse, and a steward In current English a husband is a man named in relation to the person he has married. The same spelling still works as a verb: to husband time, money, or fuel is to spend it ca
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Origin of the word "Week"
A seven-day stretch with an older name In ordinary English a week is any run of seven days, or the calendar block that starts on Sunday in much of American usage and often on Monday in Britain. People
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Origin of the word "Fight"
English uses fight for a punch-up, a lawsuit, a campaign, and the private effort of staying on one’s feet. The noun can name the clash itself or the spirit that keeps someone in it. Those later senses
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Origin of the word "Moment"
A brief stretch of time, and a heavier sense beside it In ordinary English a moment is a short, loosely bounded stretch of time, or a particular point inside time: wait a moment, at the moment, a defi
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Origin of the word "Wish"
What the word does now In present-day English the verb names a desire that may sit just out of reach. Speakers wish they had left earlier, wish a guest a safe journey, or wish an illness on nobody. Th
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