Curated word histories
Follow the stories inside familiar words.
Start with a word and trace its roots, language path, original meaning, and journey into modern English.
salary
The origin of salary reaches back to Latin salarium, a payment term associated with salt and shaped by an old Roman world of work.
Read the originrobot
Robot began with a Czech word for forced labor before becoming the name for a machine that works on its own.
Read the originserendipity
Serendipity was coined for the joy of finding something valuable or delightful by accident.
Read the originclue
Clue began as clew, a ball of thread, then became a guide through a puzzle and finally a hint toward an answer.
Read the originparadise
Paradise began as the concrete image of a walled garden before becoming a word for an ideal place.
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Muscle comes from a Latin word meaning little mouse, a vivid metaphor for movement beneath the skin.
Read the originenthusiasm
Enthusiasm began with the idea of divine inspiration and gradually became a word for energetic interest.
Read the origindisaster
Disaster carries the old image of an event caused by a bad star or an unlucky alignment in the sky.
Read the originhazard
Hazard moved from the language of dice and chance to the wider idea of danger and risk.
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Window is an old Norse “wind-eye,” a practical image for an opening that lets air and light into a room.
Read the originschool
School traces to a Greek word for leisure, because learning once belonged to the time set aside for serious conversation.
Read the originhusband
Husband began as an Old Norse word for the master or inhabitant of a house before becoming a family relationship term.
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