WORD ORIGIN DICTIONARY

word origin

(5. Word origins) For example, “It’s a French word for a kind of classical dance”.
(Word origins) A beginning, starting point, or source of a word used in modern English language.
(Word Origins) Fun romp through the origins of such English words and phrases as:  Mind Your P’s & Q’s, The Whole Nine Yards, Filibuster, Yankee, Outside The Box, and more.

dictionary

A dictionary, also referred to as a lexicon, wordbook, or vocabulary, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information;Webster’s New World College Dictionary
A book that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and gives their meaning, or that gives the equivalent words in a different language
A reference book on any subject, the items of which are arranged in alphabetical order
a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them
An associative array (also associative container, map, mapping, dictionary, finite map, and in query-processing an index or index file) is an abstract data type composed of a collection of unique keys and a collection of values, where each key is associated with one value (or set of values).

word origin dictionary – Morris Dictionary

Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

The first Edition of the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins detailed the fascinating and little known stories behind thousands of words and phrases that we use every day.In this new edition, William and Mary Morris update and expand their classic work to keep pace with our ever changing language.
New entries include:
New trends–crack, glitch, greenmail, Harrier attack airplanes
Foreign terms–falafel, geisha, jihad, paparazzi
People–batman, dead end kid, Dutch uncle, hatchet man, Young Turks
Given names–Chester, Edith, Jennifer and others
Food–Adam and Eve on a raft, alligator pear, grapefruit, Harriet Lane
Sports–box score, cheese champions, full court press
and many more
Throughout the Morris’s present the histories of intriguing expressions in an eminently entertaining and readable fashion.

Anyone interested in the English language will be fascinated by — and then obsessed with — this dictionary that reads like an erudite gossip column for the city of words.

Day 73: Dictionary

When I lived by myself I often had two books out on my coffee table at all times for quick access. One was the Bible, the other was my Dictionary. Throughout the years I have gone through a couple different Bibles but I’ve had the same dictionary since I was 14 years old. It’s a monster of a book with a dark blue cover and a thick binding that is now tearing from wear.

I got it for Christmas in 1997 as a gift from my father. My step-mother Terri spilled the beans early and told me I was getting a dictionary because my father thought I should have a good solid one to last me the rest of my life. Boy was I annoyed. I wanted a computer or at least something remotely entertaining. She even told me that she went out and bought one but my father deemed it unacceptable and sent her out to get another, better more substantial one.

A few days before Christmas I jokingly said that it would be good to have a dictionary around when you need one and my dad couldn’t resist. So Terri went and handed me the massive book with hundreds of thousands of words. It was heavy and it was big and it was amazing. It not only had definitions of words, but origins and pictures, graphs and charts. It had everything.

Many nights followed where I would sit up and read to them the many interesting things found in my gift. I learned the longest word in the English language was pneumonoultramicroscopicsilcovolcaniconisosis and I learned its definition. It did take me several weeks to say it correctly. My dad even told me that I was allowed to say any word I found in the dictionary as long as I could give its meaning and pronounce it properly. I turned immediately to the F’s and found no less than 9 variations of the F word. He kept to his word and I had free range of expletives.

I was involved in the drama program in High School and one day we had to do monologues and I got to pick one that was all about a young boy’s love of the dictionary. I’m serious it is out there somewhere and I got to bring in my dictionary as a prop for comedic effect. Boy was it funny.

I remember one night sitting up with my dad and Terri at the kitchen table reading from Big Blue and my father said something very out of character for him, being a man who claims to not believe in God. He pointed to my dictionary and said “Son, you should know this book” then he held up a Bible and said, “And you should live this book.”
Another time I was flipping quickly through the pages and just saying all the cool words that were listed and defined in the book and Terri told me to slow down, the next word was Hoochy Koochy and I read it in a very slow manner causing her, my father and grandmother to erupt in laughter.

Just thinking about these little stories I realize how much I love my dad. I use the word realize on purpose because it’s not something that is always apparent to me. He and I don’t have the greatest relationship. We disagree on a lot and much of our interaction is based on trying to artfully debate one another. The three years that I lived with him after my parents divorced is an interesting period of my life.

At the age when a boy needs his dad mine was both near and very distant. Because we lived in a remote area where I only had one really good friend nearby much of my time was spent reading anything I could get my hands on. As a result it’s fair to say that my father is probably most responsible for the man I will become and no matter how far away I live from him or how rarely I speak with him, I’ll always see the world, in part, through his eyes.

Over the years, as I alluded to earlier, I’ve gotten rid of a lot of books and replaced them with newer ones. But in the many times that I’ve moved since then I’ve always taken that dictionary with me. I know it’s not that big of a deal, and I know that the few anecdotes I have that go along with it aren’t the most entertaining. But till the day I pass it on to my son I will always have that book. And when that day comes, if he asks me what’s so important about a book, I’ll simply say, “It’s a book my father gave me.”

A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806)

I don’t actually own a copy of Noah Webster’s first dictionary, published in 1806. This is scanned from a facsimile of the book published in 1970. This was the first substantial dictionary published in the United States, and it includes some words of American origin not in British dictionaries. The back matter includes a chronological table beginning with "The creation of the world, and Adam and Eve" in 4004 B. C. and ending with events in A. D. 1805.

word origin dictionary

There are no direct records of the original Indo-European speech. By comparing the vocabularies of its various descendants, however, it is possible to reconstruct the basic Indo-European roots with considerable confidence. In The Origins of English Words, Shipley catalogues these proposed roots and follows the often devious, always fascinating, process by which some of their offshoots have grown.Anecdotal, eclectic, and always enthusiastic, The Origins of English Words is a diverting expedition beyond linguistics into literature, history, folklore, anthropology, philosophy, and science.

There are no direct records of the original Indo-European speech. By comparing the vocabularies of its various descendants, however, it is possible to reconstruct the basic Indo-European roots with considerable confidence. In The Origins of English Words, Shipley catalogues these proposed roots and follows the often devious, always fascinating, process by which some of their offshoots have grown.Anecdotal, eclectic, and always enthusiastic, The Origins of English Words is a diverting expedition beyond linguistics into literature, history, folklore, anthropology, philosophy, and science.