Leave a Review Etymonline English Dictionary
My Go-To Resource
Language is in a constant state of flux and the meanings of words change - sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. It’s important to understand definitions during the times the words were written. This makes our understanding more precise and often richer! This app brings that research right to my fingertips!!! It sits in one of the first groups on my phone - and in front of my dictionary apps!Show lessRGShelton
Easy, Witty, Enlightening
The modern world has no shortage of dry wit, but Etymonline is both funny and incisive, making the expository paragraphs more compelling by their unique voice. The app itself is bare-bones, but easy to use. The cross-references in the entries are sometimes haphazard, but the ones borne of winding asides are reliably the most interesting, and make for a fun garden path to wander down. I frequently consult it in conversation with family and friends for a steady supply of amusement. (Did you know a “lord” is a bread-guard?) Nothing quite connects one to our linguistic forebears and punctures our pretensions about the hoary past like learning that their silly word-games are our standard English. (Robins are so named because the personal name alliterated with “redbreast;” the people aren’t named for the birds.) In sum, this is one of my most-used apps. It becomes a game all its own, the Pac-Man of language nerds. Follow the trail of tidbits and find the ghosts still wandering through the halls of diction.Show lessL'Ardente
Want to really understand a word?
Not until I started using this app, and learning the history of how a word developed, combined with other words and its use has been corrupted from outside influences and adopted, have I been able to clear the rub in my head when a word doesn’t seem to be following a rule. I now have some new little mental hints of what to look for when I’m trying to remember what a word means! It’s like gifting myself with an interesting history lesson about the influence of peoples and places through time. Love it!!Show lessjchavez2020