Posts in Origin of the word
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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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Origin of the word "Hurt"
Pain, injury, and a verb of impact In current English, to hurt someone is to cause physical injury or emotional pain. The same verb, used without an object, names the sensation itself: a tooth hurts,
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Origin of the word "Daughter"
English daughter names a female child in relation to her parents, and a little more loosely a female descendant. That kinship sense has been stable for as long as English has written records. What has
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Origin of the word "Number"
What speakers mean by it In current English a number is a quantity, a mathematical object, or the written mark that stands for one. The same noun also names a place in a sequence, a telephone combinat
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Origin of the word "Story"
More than a tale In current English a story is an account of events, whether they happened, might have happened, or were invented for the telling. The same noun covers a child’s bedtime narrative, a n
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Origin of the word "Important"
A word for what still matters When English speakers call a fact, a person, or a decision important, they mean it has consequence. The adjective covers events that change a course of affairs, details t
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Origin of the word "Word"
A unit of speech, and more than that In ordinary English, a word is the smallest piece of language that speakers treat as a complete unit: something you can pause on, look up, or type with spaces arou
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Origin of the word "Party"
Several jobs, one borrowed noun In present-day English, party is unusually crowded. It can name a birthday gathering, a political organization, one side in a lawsuit, a search team, or, in older infor
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Origin of the word "Close"
Two sounds, one family In present-day English, close is two common words that share a spelling and a history but not a pronunciation. As a verb it usually ends in a voiced sound: close the door, close
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Origin of the word "Four"
The count in ordinary English Four is the English cardinal for 4: the integer after three and before five. It names a size of set, a digit, and, by extension, teams, scores, and objects that come in t
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Origin of the word "Dear"
English uses dear in several registers at once. It names a person you love, it opens a letter to someone you may never have met, and in older or British usage it still marks a high price. Those jobs l
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Origin of the word "Chance"
What English uses the word for In current English the noun covers several jobs that still sit close together. It can be an opening worth taking, a degree of likelihood, luck treated as an impersonal f
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Origin of the word "Sleep"
English speakers use sleep for the nightly drop in consciousness, for a stretch of rest, and, more loosely, for anything that has gone quiet: a computer, a numb limb, a question left unanswered. The v
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Origin of the word "Afraid"
A state, not a label in front of a noun In current English, afraid is the ordinary word for being frightened, anxious, or unwilling to face something. People are afraid of heights, afraid to ask, or a
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Origin of the word "Body"
Flesh, a person, and a mass In present-day English, body names the physical frame of a human or animal, the trunk as opposed to the head and limbs, and a dead body. It also names a person, as in someb
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