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- What are some good sites for researching etymology? [closed]
Here is an example of a directed graph: It works in multiple languages, providing etymology data, descendants, related words and more It also has a pretty quick search, and the index is constantly growing in the number of words and slowly growing in accuracy too
- etymology - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
The Choctaw etymology remained more esoteric common knowledge until Woodrow Wilson's time, and continued to be common knowledge until Read purposefully substituted a cock-and-bull fake etymology for it
- etymology - Why do people say buck for a dollar? - English Language . . .
The word has been in use in this sense since 1748 according to etymonline I would guess most currencies have changed their designs quite significantly since then, and the term likely didn't come from any design on a coin at all The fact that there happens to be a buck on the 1 rand coin is probably either coincidental or reversely causal: they could have put the buck on the coin because a
- etymology - What is the origin of the phrase hunky dory? - English . . .
Nobody really knows There's no agreed derivation of the expression 'hunky-dory' It is American and the earliest example of it in print that I have found is from a collection of US songs, George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky, 1862 We do know that 'hunky-dory' wasn't conjured from nowhere but was preceded by earlier words, i e 'hunkey', meaning 'fit and healthy' and 'hunkum-bunkum
- etymology - What gave terrific a positive connotation? - English . . .
Possible Duplicate: How and why have some words changed to a complete opposite? I have noticed that: horrible means bad terrible means bad horrific means bad So why does terrific mean good?
- offensive language - What is the etymology of BFE? - English Language . . .
I am fairly certain that the inaccurate “butt fuck Egypt” derived from bum being the English term for buttocks Clearly the definition of BFE is the same regardless of what one believes the “B” stands for, but I thought is was worth correcting I have no idea how accurate or reliable the above etymology is There is no entry on
- etymology - Where did the phrase batsh*t crazy come from? - English . . .
The word crazy is a later addition Scanning Google Books I find a handful of references starting from the mid-60s where batshit is clearly just a variation on bullshit (nonsense, rubbish) - which meaning still turns up even in 2001, but it's relatively uncommon now Here's a relatively early one from 1967 where the meaning is crazy A decade later most references have this meaning, but the
- etymology - Why is pineapple in English but ananas in all other . . .
In Spanish, it's also called piña The etymology of "pineapple" and a few other words is nicely illustrated at Europe etymology maps
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