Etymology for All
Etymology should be a public good.
Many apps gatekeep etymological knowledge behind paywalls or proprietary databases.
We believe the history of language belongs to everyone.
This project exists to make word origins accessible, explorable, and free.
Every word has a story—discover where yours came from.
Data Sources
Etymology: EtymDB 2.1,
an open etymological database derived from Wiktionary containing 1.9 million words across 2,500+ languages.
Fourrier & Sagot (2020), "Methodological Aspects of Developing and Managing an Etymological Lexical Resource", LREC 2020
Definitions: Free Dictionary API,
a community-driven dictionary service also sourced from Wiktionary.
How It Works
The Data Pipeline
- Source: EtymDB extracts etymology data from Wiktionary
- Curation: We filter for clean English words with valid etymology links (~40K words)
- Language metadata: Each word is tagged with its language family (e.g., "Germanic → Indo-European")
- Definitions: Enriched from Free Dictionary API (~21K definitions)
Reading the Graph
- Arrows point from modern words to their ancestors
- Click any word to see its language family and definition
- Language families show how languages are historically related
Limitations
Not all words have definitions available. Some etymology connections may be incomplete
or reflect Wiktionary's editorial choices. Compound word breakdowns (e.g., "magn-animus")
are not yet supported.