Posts in Origin of the word
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Origin of the word "Brother"
A word for kinship and company In everyday English, brother names a male sibling: a son of the same parents, or of one shared parent. The same form also stretches beyond the household. Speakers use it
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Origin of the word "Door"
What English speakers mean by it A door is the movable panel that closes an opening into a room, a building, a vehicle, or a piece of furniture. The same word also stands for the opening itself: peopl
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Origin of the word "Happy"
A feeling that used to be luck In ordinary English, happy names a state of pleasure or ease: a child with a gift, a guest who is glad to stay, a speaker who is willing to help. The same adjective stil
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Origin of the word "Hold"
What the verb does now In current English, to hold is first of all to keep something in the hand or against the body, and from that core it fans out. You hold a child so it does not fall. You hold a c
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Origin of the word "Idea"
What speakers mean now In ordinary English, an idea is a thought with some outline: a plan, an opinion, a notion of how a thing works, or only a faint sense that something is the case. You can float a
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Origin of the word "Head"
Head is one of the shortest common nouns in English and one of the most crowded. In ordinary talk it names the part of the body that holds the brain and the main senses. The same form also names a lea
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Origin of the word "Ready"
Prepared, willing, and at hand In present-day English, ready names a state of fitness more often than a single concrete object. A meal is ready when it can be served. A person is ready when the work c
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Origin of the word "Shit"
A native word for a basic fact In current English, shit is a vulgar term for feces and for the act of defecating. It also covers a wide slang range: stuff, nonsense, trouble, a contemptible person, an
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Origin of the word "Miss"
What English does with miss In current English, miss names several kinds of failure that still belong together. You can miss a target, a catch, a train, a class, a deadline, or the point of a remark.
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Origin of the word "Live"
Two spellings, two lives In ordinary English, live is first of all a verb: to be alive, to go on existing, to get through a day or a century. We live in towns, live on bread or a salary, live through
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Origin of the word "Room"
Space first, walls later In current English, room does two jobs that sit beside each other without being the same job. Used without a plural, it is the extent available for a body or an action: room t
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Origin of the word "Baby"
In everyday English, a baby is a very young child, usually one still dependent on others for almost everything. The same noun stretches further: it can mean the youngest person in a family or team, a
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Origin of the word "Real"
What speakers mean by it now In ordinary English the adjective names several related judgments at once. A thing is real if it exists in the world rather than in a story or a hypothesis. A metal, a doc
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Origin of the word "Family"
A word for kin, household, and kind In present-day English, family most often names the people closest to you by blood, marriage, or adoption: parents and children, and sometimes a wider circle of rel
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Origin of the word "Morning"
The first stretch of the day English speakers use morning for the early part of the day: from midnight to noon in clock time, or from sunrise to noon in ordinary talk. It also names dawn itself, and i
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