The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European RootsJHU Press, 2001 M07 1 - 672 pages 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. |
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... color of the bird (Latin alba, white) led the way to English albatross. The greater number of our English words, however, can be traced through various branches of the family to an inferred Indo-European root. This volume lists the most ...
... color of the bird (Latin alba, white) led the way to English albatross. The greater number of our English words, however, can be traced through various branches of the family to an inferred Indo-European root. This volume lists the most ...
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... color is named; from the color, (1) an 18th-century lady's cloak, (2) a bird, (3) a flower, (4) a fish—which seems oceans away from a door hinge. Germanic flug became fugl, whence our fowl. Vogel is German for bird. Latin scintilla came ...
... color is named; from the color, (1) an 18th-century lady's cloak, (2) a bird, (3) a flower, (4) a fish—which seems oceans away from a door hinge. Germanic flug became fugl, whence our fowl. Vogel is German for bird. Latin scintilla came ...
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... color of the early fruit skin. A colorful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins begins: “Glory be to God for dappled things.” For apple-pie order, see caput. apple cider; apple dumpling. “Coleridge holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who ...
... color of the early fruit skin. A colorful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins begins: “Glory be to God for dappled things.” For apple-pie order, see caput. apple cider; apple dumpling. “Coleridge holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who ...
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... color”; “work like a horse”; “don't look a gift horse in the mouth”; “you're flogging a dead horse.” A wooden horse, “foaled of an acorn,” is the English gallows. The horse has close relatives. A mule is the sterile offspring of a ...
... color”; “work like a horse”; “don't look a gift horse in the mouth”; “you're flogging a dead horse.” A wooden horse, “foaled of an acorn,” is the English gallows. The horse has close relatives. A mule is the sterile offspring of a ...
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... colors; later, also a junior member of a trade guild. (Among the seals, a bachelor is barred from the breeding grounds by the adult males.) Chaucer, in The Merchant's Tale (1386), seems to have been the first to write of a bachelor as ...
... colors; later, also a junior member of a trade guild. (Among the seals, a bachelor is barred from the breeding grounds by the adult males.) Chaucer, in The Merchant's Tale (1386), seems to have been the first to write of a bachelor as ...
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The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots Joseph Twadell Shipley No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
ancient animal applied associated beauty became bird body called coined color columns comes common compounds Dictionary earlier early earth element ending England English especially figuratively folkchanged four French frequent genus gives Greek hand head hence hold horse human imitative Italy John King known land language later Latin leaves letters light lists literally live Lord mark meaning meant mind nature never Note one’s originally perhaps person pictured plant play Possibly prefix probably referred Roman root says sense Shakespeare shape short shortened song sound speaks stand star suggested term things translation tree turn usually whence woman words beginning wrote young