The Origin

of
Words

Where Words Come From

The English language has developed
from an Anglo-Saxon base of common
words such as household words, parts of
the body, common animals, natural
elements, most pronouns, prepositions,
conjunctions and auxiliary verbs.
Other modern words in English have
developed from five sources. These are
discussed below:
Words Created From Nothing
Words Created In Error
Borrowed and Adopted Words
Changes In Words

Words Created From Nothing

Examples of words that have just appeared in
the language out of nothing are byte, dog
(replacing the earlier hund), donkey, jam,
kick, and log.
Shakespeare coined over 1600 words including
countless, critical, excellent, lonely,
majestic, obscene.
From Ben Johnson we got damp, from Isaac
Newton - centrifugal and from Thomas More
- explain and exact.

Words Created In Error

The vegetablepeasewas thought to
be a plural so that the individual item
in the pod was given the namepea.
The verblazewas erroneously
created from the adjectivelazy.
The word buttonholewas a mishearing ofbutton-hold.

Borrowed and Adopted Words

English has borrowed words from a
variety of sources and other languages.
Example: Orange
The name of the fruit was NARANJ in
Sanskrit. Words ending in J are not common
in English so the spelling quickly changed to
a NARANGE. The initial N moved to the a
because of mis-hearing to give an ARANGE
(this is called metanalysis). Over time, the
initial A became an O to give an ORANGE.

Changes In Words
The word silly meant blessed or happy in the 11th
century going through pious, innocent, harmless,
pitiable, feeble, feeble minded before finally ending
up as foolish or stupid.
Pretty began as crafty then changed via clever,
skilfully made, fine to beautiful.
The word nice meant stupid and foolish in the late
13th Century. It went through a number of changes
including wanton, extravagant, elegant, strange,
modest, thin, and shy. By the middle of the 18th
Century it had gained its current meaning of
pleasant and agreeable.

Word

Original Meaning

awful

deserving of awe

brave

cowardice (as inbravado)

counterfeit

legitimate copy

cute

bow-legged

girl

young person of either sex

guess

take aim

knight

boy

luxury

sinful self indulgence

neck

parcel of land (as inneck of the

woods)

notorious

famous

nuisance

injury, harm

quick

alive (as inquicksilver)

sophisticated

corrupted

tell

to count (as inbank teller)

truant

beggar

Words Created By Subtraction Or

Addition
Words can be created by adding suffixes:
-able, -ness, -ment. They can also be
created by adding prefixes: dis-, anti-.
Examples include: sellable, brightness,
pavement, disestablish, antimatter.
Words can be combined to form new words
(air and port gave airport; land and mark to
give landmark). Sometimes the combination
can go in more than one way (houseboat,
boathouse; bookcase, casebook).

Many common words have been

shortened from the original term as in
the table below
Modern Word
Original Form
bus
exam
gym
knickers
lab
mob
petrol

omnibus (Latin:for
everyone)
examination
gymnasium
knickerbockers
laboratory
mobile vulgus
(Latin:fickle crowd)
petroleum (Greek:rock
oil)

Metanalysis is the process where a

letter is added or subtracted because
of a nearby word. Examples below.
Modern Word
a nickname
a newt
an adder
an apron
an orange
an umpire

Original
Form
an ekename
an ewt
a nadder
a napron
a narange
a nonper