Apr 7, 2025 · The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms.

Often words of a specific book or author, as opposed to a dictionary, which aims to be more comprehensive. The meaning "range of words in the language of a person or group" is …

root (v.3) "fix or firmly attach by roots" (often figurative), c. 1200, from root (n.); the sense of "pull up by the root" (now usually uproot) is from late 14c.; that of "put forth roots" is from c. 1400. …

Meaning "mental image or picture" is from 1610s (the Greek word for it was ennoia, originally "act of thinking"), as is the sense "concept of something to be done; concept of what ought to be, …

"Dissection" (1540s), "mummy" (1580s), and "skeleton" (1590s) were primary senses of this word in Shakespeare's day; the meaning "the science of the structure of organized bodies" …

Harper Douglas, "Etymology of empathy," Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed December 12, 2025, https://www.etymonline.com/word/empathy. Copy

word-forming element of Greek origin meaning "self, one's own, by oneself, of oneself" (and especially, from 1895, "automobile"), from Greek autos, reflexive pronoun, "self, same," which …

For ending, see -logy. The meaning "study of mechanical and industrial arts" as a branch of knowledge (Century Dictionary, 1895, gives as examples "spinning, metal-working, or …

1520s, "oblique or diagonal line," from French biais "a slant, a slope, an oblique," also figuratively, "an expedient, means" (13c., originally in Old French a past-participle adjective, "sideways, …

"space-traveler," 1929 in scientific speculation, popularized from 1961 by U.S. space program, a compound from Greek elements, from astro- "star" + Greek nautēs "sailor" (from PIE root *nau …