John

→ Arabic: جُون (jōn)

→ Cebuano: John

→ French: John

→ Italian: John

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-John.wav

From Middle English John, Johan, Johannes, from Anglo-Norman Jehan, Johan, and also Old English Iohannes, both from Late Latin Iōhannēs, variant of Latin Iōannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yôḥānān), perhaps contracted from a former יְהוֹחָנָן (Yəhōḥānān, “God is gracious”).
Doublet of Jack, Jon, Johan, Johann, Johannes, Jean, Sean, Shane, Shaun, Ian, Ivan, Evan, Juan, Giovanni, and Yahya.

doublet

a John Doe murder case; the dreaded Dear John letter; if we were to ask John Q. Public his opinion

A male given name originating from the Bible [in turn from Hebrew]; very popular since the Middle Ages.

(informal) Used generically for a man whose actual name may not be known.

মিঞা

name used to address a man whose name is not known

sir

name used to address a man whose actual name is not known (standard)

boy

name used to address a man whose actual name is not known(colloquial or slang)

(informal) Used frequently to form an idea personified, as in John Bull, John Barleycorn (see derivations below).

John is a most excellent name, and Smith is a surname which is worthy of respect and honor, but wo to the man on whom they are conjoined! For John Smith to aspire to senatorial dignities or to the laurel of a poet is simply ridiculous. Who is John Smith? He is lost in the multitude of John Smiths, and individual fame is impossible.

1852 August, D. H. Jacques, “A Chapter on Names”, in The Knickerbocker, or, New-York Monthly Magazine, volume XL, page 114:

The name I refer to is John. It has been borne by many illustrious men and an innumerable multitude of the obscure. - - - It is as fixed as the English landscape and the procession of seasons. It never becomes wearisome or tarnished. Nothing affects it; nothing can bring it into contempt; it stands like a rock amid the turbulent waves of human history, as fine and noble a thing now as it was when it first took shape on human lips. It is a name to live up to; but if one who bears it sinks into disrepute it falls not with him, but rather stays in the firmament above him, shining down upon him like a reproachful star.

1920, John Collings Squire, “Initials”, in Life and Letters: Essays, Hodder & Stoughton, pages 233–235:


Sicilian

From Latin Sicilia + -an. By surface analysis, Sicily + -an.


Dalton

From Old English dæl (“valley”) + tun (“settlement”). Equivalent to dale + town.

A male given name transferred from the surname.


Martial

From Latin Martialis (“Roman cognomen”), from martiālis (“belonging or dedicated to the Mars, the Roman god of war, or to war”), from Mārs (“the god Mars; the planet Mars”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship from nouns).

Saint Martial was the first bishop of Limoges, circa 250

A male given name from Latin, narrowly applied to certain historic persons (but some of its foreign cognates are modern given names).

An Anglicized cognomen or given name of the Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis, born in Spain in the first century AD and noted for his epigrams.


Martial

For, having found out by a careful series of observations, the parts of Mars' orbit where the planet entered upon its various seasons, he [William Herschel] noted that, soon after mid-winter of the northern hemisphere, the northern white spot attained its greatest dimensions, while the southern was reduced to a tiny oval of light; whereas half a Martial year later, the southern spot was at its largest, and the northern a mere speck when compared with its winter appearance.

1869 February 6, “The Planet of War”, in E[neas] S[weetland] Dallas, editor, Once a Week, volume III, number 58 (New Series), London: Bradbury, Evans, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 74, column 1:

(astronomy, obsolete) Alternative letter-case form of martial (“of or relating to the planet Mars”)


Martial

The Martials, if there be Martials in any sense in which there are terrestrials on our own planet, may have no eyes at all; their whole civilisation, if they have say, may depend on senses of which we have absolutely no trace, […]

1892, The Spectator: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, Theology, and Art, volume LXIX, London: F. C. Westley, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 218, column 2:

(chiefly science fiction, obsolete) Alternative letter-case form of martial (“inhabitant of the planet Mars; Martian”)


Downing Street

Named for its founder, Sir George Downing.

For all his faults and grandstanding, however, Prescott genuinely cared - and his ambitious plans for tram schemes and railway extensions were stymied by lack of support from Downing Street.

2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 60:

(loosely) Either 10 Downing Street or 11 Downing Street.


C

(UK politics, in election results) Abbreviation of Conservative.


Emily

English form of Latin Aemilia, a gens name from aemulus (“rival, emulator”).

1380s-1390s, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale
I am thy mortal foe, and it am I
That so hot loveth Emily the bright,
That I would die here present in her sight.

People will please their fancies, and every lady has her favourite names. I myself have several, and they are mostly short and simple. - - - Emily, in which all womanly sweetness seems bound up - perhaps this is the effect of association of ideas - I have known so many charming Emilys

1830, Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names::

This may have accounted for Emma's Christian name, for it had seemed to Beatrix unfair to call her daughter Emily, a name associated with her grandmother's servants rather than the author of The Wuthering Heights, so Emma had been chosen, perhaps with the hope that some of the qualities possessed by the heroine of the novel might be perpetuated.

1980, Barbara Pym, A Few Green Leaves, →ISBN, page 8:

Emily. Em-il-y, three syllables, like a knock on the door of destiny. Such an odd, old-fashioned name, compared to those Kylies and Traceys and Jades — names that reeked of Impulse and grease and stood out in gaudy neon colours — whilst hers was that muted, dusky pink, like bubblegum, like roses —

2010, Joanne Harris, blueeyedboy, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 102:


Latin

Jamaican Creole: Latn

From Middle English Latyn, Latyne, Latin, from Old French latin, latyn, from Latin latīnus, from Latium (“the region around Rome”) + -īnus (adjective suffix). Displaced or merged with Old English Lǣden. Doublet of Ladino.

Africa was the natural leader because there the number of Christians who were of Roman origin and Latin speech was probably far greater than in so cosmopolitan a city as Rome.

1948, L. E. Elliott-Binns, The Beginnings of Western Christendom, page 257:

Of or relating to Latin: the language spoken in ancient Rome and other cities of Latium.

The Serbo-Croatian incunabula printed in Latin letters are indubitably the products of a very modest establishment.

1968, Mladen Bošnjak, A Study of Slavic Incunabula, page 62:

Of or relating to the script of the language spoken in ancient Rome and many modern alphabets.

The Latin bishop now took the Greek bishop by the hand and conducted him to his throne[…]

1901, John Hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, page 117:

(Christianity) Roman Catholic; of or pertaining to the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.


Latin

en-proper noun

Latin (countable and uncountable, plural Latins)

From Middle English Latin, Latyn, from Old English Lǣden, from Vulgar Latin *ladinum (“Latin”) and Old French latin (“Latin”); all from Latin Latinus (“belonging to Latium”). Later influenced in form by the Latin word. Compare Dutch Latijn (“Latin”), German Latein (“Latin”), Swedish Latin (“Latin”).

Supper being over, the lawyer took his leave, and the doctor began to ſound the learned clerk reſpecting his proficiency in the dead languages. "As to dead languages," replied the ſchoolmafter, "I was once a vaſt pretty ſcholar indeed, but want of exercise has made me main ſlack—I can't get over my ground as I uſed to do. Then as to the t'other dead fellow, I could never greek it at all, that's flat. And, Lord bleſs you! my Latin is of no more uſe to me here than—than—" Here he ſtuck for want of a ſimile; when Mr. Le Dupe helped him out by ſaying, "that it is to a young man at college, where it is conſidered a pedantic inſult, and an unpardonable bore, to utter a Latin ſentence."

1799, Edward Dubois, A Piece of Family Biography, volume II, page 20:

To Hall [Robert A. Hall, Jr.], the development would be something as follows: Latin > Proto-Romance (dated late Republic and Early Empire) > Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Italo-Western Romance (to which Hall would limit the term "Vulgar Latin") > Proto-Western Romance > Proto-Gallo Romance, etc. Each of these main divisions splits off into further languages: Latin > Classical Latin; Proto-Romance > Proto-Southern Romance > Sardinian, Lucianian, Sicilian; Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Eastern Romance > Proto-Balkan Romance, etc.

1999, Karl Strecker, transl. by Robert B. Palmer, Introduction to Medieval Latin: English Tranlation and Revision, 2nd ed. (2nd reprint of the ed. Dublin/Zürich 1971 (Berlin 1957)), Weidmann: Zürich & Hildesheim, p. 29

When the Christian Church rose in stature in the Dark Ages, its adoption of Latin as the official language assured its eternal life.

2003, Natalie Harwood, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin, 2nd edition, page 13:

Like Copernicus and Galileo, Johannes Kepler was a renowned astronomer who wrote in Latin.

2010, Elizabeth Heimbach, A Roman Map Workbook, page 134:

(uncountable) The language of the ancient Romans, other Latins and of the Roman Catholic church, especially Classical Latin.

ܠܸܫܵܢܵܐ ܠܵܛܝܼܢܵܝܵܐ

liššānā lāṭīnāyā

Anglo-Latin

(varieties of Latin) Latin; Biblical Latin, Classical Latin, Church Latin / Ecclesiastical Latin, Late Latin, Low Latin, Medieval Latin / Middle Latin, New Latin / Neo-Latin, Old Latin, Recent Latin / Contemporary Latin, Renaissance Latin, Vulgar Latin


Estuary English

received pronunciation
received pronunciation

(British) A variety of English accent, spreading out from London into the area of the Thames estuary, containing features of received pronunciation, Cockney and other regional accents.

Estuaryn murre (no established translation)


Samantha

It was recorded in the 17th century in England.
Most probably a feminine form of Samuel, possibly influenced by Anthea. Other suggestions include Aramaic ܫܡܥܢܬܐ (šemʿanta, “listener”, noun), from ܫܡܥ.
In India, Samantha can be interpreted as a variant spelling of Samanta, from Sanskrit समन्त (samanta, “universal, adjacent”).

der

These country girls, as they were called, had queer names, which added to the singularity of their appearance. Samantha, Triphena, Plumy, Leafy, Ruhamah, Lovey, and Florilla were among them.

1876, Phebe Ann Hanaford, Women of the Century, page 525:

"Its name is Samantha Jo, after Josiah and me. - - - If it had been a boy, we was layin' out to call it Josiah Sam, - Sam for Samantha."

1888, Marietta Holley, Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I.: Samantha at the Centennial, page 577:

"Middle of the depression - who's going to give a kid a nutty name like Samantha? Today's another matter, but around then, from what I hear, people weren't thinking about these stylish names."

1967, Howard Fast, Samantha, I Books, published 2004, →ISBN, page 42:

But here's my favorite name: Samuel. It's from the Bible. If it's a girl, name it Samantha. That sounds like something in a prayer, doesn't it? I think it's a name in the Chronicles. I've been reading the Bible every night." - - -
She found the Book of Chronicles and scanned it. - - - There was no Samantha in either the first or the second book of the Chronicles.

1985, Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country, Harper&Row, →ISBN, pages 182, 183:


Christine

Borrowed from French Christine. Doublet of Christina.

"Chris?" he repeated after her very softly, his eyes upon her, tenderly indulgent. "Ah! let it be Christine. I may call you that?"
"My actual name is Christina, but that's a detail. You can call me Christine if you like it best."

1913, Ethel May Dell, The Rocks of Valpré, BiblioBazaar, LLC, published 2007, →ISBN, page 36:


Samaritan

/səˈmæɹɪtən/

/səˈmɛɹɪtən/

From Latin Samarītānus, from Ancient Greek Σαμαρείτης (Samareítēs), from Σαμαρεία (Samareía, “Samaria”), derived from Biblical Hebrew שֹׁמְרוֹנִים (Šōmərôním) and שֹׁמְרוֹן (Šōmərôn) respectively. Attested in Old English.

Many of these despised people built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim in the central Palestinian territory known as Samaria, and hence they were called Samaritans (a word of contempt to Jews); in very reduced numbers, they still live round their sacred mountain now.

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 62:

A native, or inhabitant of Samaria; especially one practising certain ethnoreligious traditions indigenous to that region.

A charitable person, one who helps others (from the Bible story in Luke 10:30–37).

(UK) A person who works for the Samaritans telephone helpline, taking calls from suicidal members of the public.


Samaritan

/səˈmæɹɪtən/

/səˈmɛɹɪtən/

The ancient language of Samaria: a dialect of Hebrew.


Wills

From the clipping of William + -s (hypocoristic suffix).

A diminutive of the male given name William.


martial

From Middle English martial, marcial, mercial, mercialle (“relating to war, warlike; military; for use in fighting or warfare; brave, hardy; combative, fierce; ruthless, vicious; domineering, overbearing”), from Middle French martial (modern French martial (“martial”)), or directly from its etymon Latin mārtiālis (“of or pertaining to Mars, the Roman god of war”), from Mārtius (“of or pertaining to Mars”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship). The English word is cognate with Italian marziale (“martial”), Portuguese marcial (“martial”), Spanish marcial (“martial”).

The Martials, if there be Martials in any sense in which there are terrestrials on our own planet, may have no eyes at all; their whole civilisation, if they have say, may depend on senses of which we have absolutely no trace, [...]

1892, The Spectator: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, Theology, and Art, volume LXIX, London: F. C. Westley, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 218, column 2:

(chiefly science fiction, obsolete) Synonym of Martian (“inhabitant of the planet Mars”)


Arthurian

en-adj

Arthurian (comparative more Arthurian, superlative most Arthurian)

more Arthurian (comparative)
most Arthurian (superlative)

A reminder of the Arthurian legends comes with the next station, Camelford, where passengers alight for Boscastle and Tintagel with their fine coast scenery, and near to which is Slaughter Bridge, where King Arthur is supposed to have fought his last.

1949 September and October, B. G. Wilson, “The North Cornwall Line of the Southern Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 328:

Of or pertaining to the legend of Arthur, king of the Britons, and his court at Camelot.


Joyce

Medieval (Middle English) given name from Old French Josse, name of a seventh century saint Latinized as Iodocus, from Breton Iodoc, diminutive of iudh (“lord”), from Proto-Celtic *youdos.

"It's a curious name," remarked Captain Levison. "Joyce - Joyce! I never heard such a name. Is it a Christian name or a surname?"
"She was baptised Joyce. It is not so very uncommon. Her name is Joyce Hallijohn. She has been with us several years."

1860, Mrs Henry Wood (Ellen Wood), East Lynne:

You call me mother, and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.
I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.

A female given name from the Celtic languages, associated by folk etymology with joy and rejoice.


Shana

Anglicized variant of the Welsh name Siân (pet form Siana) - or a version of the French name Jeanne.

Shayna

also spelled Shana; both derived from the Yiddish female given name שיינע (sheyne; )


Cristobal

A male given name from Spanish, an anglicized spelling of Spanish Cristóbal.


dee

I have drunk en-ee-cee-tee-ay-ar from the ef-ell-oh-doubleyou-ee-ar-ess in his gee-ay-ar-dee-ee-en many a time.

2004, Will Rogers, The Stonking Steps, page 170:

IED [is spoken] as "eye-ee-dee" instead of "I SPELL India Echo Delta Romeo".

2016, CCEB, Communications Instructions Radiotelephone Procedures: ACP125 (G), pages 3–5:

The name of the Latin-script letter D/d.


King Arthur

A legendary king of Britain, said to have led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century.


Roman

From Old French Romain, from Latin Rōmānus. In reference to the Byzantine Empire, via the Byzantine Greek endonym Ῥωμαῖος (Rhōmaîos). By surface analysis, Rome + -an. Doublet of Romano.

‘Is it like―I don’t know―Catholicism? One only spots the other Romans when one’s practised it oneself?’

2006, Sarah Waters, The Night Watch, Virago Press, page 151:


Roman

A male given name from Latin recently borrowed from continental Europe.


Ariah

From Hebrew אַרְיֵה (“God has promised. Also, lion of God”).


Frankfurter

From German Frankfurter. Equivalent to Frankfurt + -er.

A native or inhabitant of Frankfurt, Germany.


Christie

A diminutive of the female given name Christine and of its variant forms; fairly common as a formal female given name in the 20th century.

A mostly Scottish and Irish diminutive of the male given name Christopher.


Mohammed

A male given name from Arabic: alternative spelling of Muhammad


Karm

कर्म कर्म#Hindi

A male given name from Hindi कर्म (karm, “fate”).


Ismail

From Arabic إِسْمَاعِيل (ʔismāʕīl). Doublet of Ishmael.

Arabic إِسْمَاعِيل (ʔismāʕīl)

Исмаил Исмаил#Macedonian

A transliteration of the Macedonian male given name Исмаил (Ismail).


Geraldine

From Gerald + -ine. c. 1540 by the Earl of Surrey as a poetic name for Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, "one of the Fitzgeralds". Taken up as a given name in the 19th century, and used as a feminine form of Gerald.

Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen; / Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.

circa 1540 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Description and praise of his love Geraldine

Alberta is more like a man's name than any other name that comes from a men's, more than Georgianna which is just like a magnolia blossom or Henrietta which most people change to Etta or Geraldine which nobody ever thinks of coming from a man's Irish name like Gerald.

1936, George Weller, Clutch and Differential, Ayer, published 1970, →ISBN, page 196:

A female given name from the Germanic languages.


Abel

From Middle English Abel, from Old English Ābel, from Latin Abel, from Ancient Greek Ἅβελ (Hábel), from Biblical Hebrew הֶבֶל (heḇel, “breath, vapor; vanity”), possibly from Akkadian 𒌉𒍑 (ablu, “son”).


Hanif

From Arabic حَنِيف (ḥanīf, “true believer, righteous (person)”).


Khadija

/xəˈdiːd͡ʒə/


Mogul

census-designated place
census-designated place

A census-designated place in Washoe County, Nevada, United States.


masjid

Borrowed from Arabic مَسْجِد (masjid), from the root س ج د (s-j-d). Doublet of mosque.

Any masjid where the practices are devoted absolutely to The God ALONE.

If you assign a place in your home or office for prayer, then it can be considered as your own masjid.


Hassan

From Arabic حَسَّان (ḥassān, “doer of good”).


Hasan

en-proper noun

Hasan (countable and uncountable, plural Hasans)

From Arabic حَسَن (ḥasan, “fine, good, good-looking, handsome, manly; strong”).

bor

A male given name from Arabic used by Muslims.


Quraysh

Transliteration of Arabic قُرَيْش (qurayš).

translit

When the message arrived the Quraysh were already preparing for war with Medina. It did not take them long to set out from Mecca with 1,000 men in arms, augmented by 100 cavalry. All the grandees of Mecca were there, including Abu Jahl.

2014 September 25, Ziauddin Sardar, Mecca: The Sacred City, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

An ancient Bedouin tribe that controlled Mecca at the time of Muhammad.


Husayn

Transliteration of Arabic حُسَيْن (ḥusayn), from the root ح س ن (ḥ-s-n).

A male given name from Arabic used by Muslims, diminutive of حسن (“Hasan”) meaning good or handsome.


Ibrahim

Etymology tree
Biblical Hebrew אַבְרָהָםbor.
Aramaic אברהםbor.
Arabic إِبْرَاهِيم (ʔibrāhīm)bor.
English Ibrahim
Transliteration of Arabic إِبْرَاهِيم (ʔibrāhīm). Doublet of Abraham.

etymon

ar>إِبْرَاهِيم>prophet


Berkeley

From Old English beorc (“birch”) + leah (“meadow, leigh”). Equivalent to birch + -ley (“lea”).

A male given name transferred from the surname.


Barnaby

* English surname of Aramaic origin, from בַּר נְבִיָּא (bar nəḇiyyā, literally “prophet’s son”).
* Also as an English surname, from Old English Beornwald, from beorn (“young warrior”) + wealdan (“rule”) + Old Norse býr (“farmstead”).

This day the sun is in his chiefest height
With Barnaby the Bright.

The name Barnaby may strike the reader as out of place in so Celtic a pedigree; but this was an anglicisation of the true name, Brian Oge - - - Now, times are altered, and his anglicised descendants will probably begin to use Brian as a family name again, rejecting Barnaby as less respectable.

1848, John O'Donovan, “The Annals of the Four Masters”, in The Dublin University Magazine, volume 31, page 577:

Barnaby liked his own name. He was proud of its differentness and would never answer to "Barney", or any other nickname.

1962, Edward Eager, Seven-Day Magic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 1999, →ISBN, page 8:

But instead of pressing the button that would have taped the play she pressed the button that activated the built-in microphone and recorded a hundred and twenty minutes of hers and Barnaby's home life, which aurally consisted of 'Want a cup of tea?' 'No thanks.'

A male given name from Hebrew, from the medieval vernacular form of Barnabas.


Sayyid

en-proper noun

Sayyid (countable and uncountable, plural Sayyids)

From Arabic سَيِّد (sayyid, “Master, Lord, the nobleman”).


COBRA

Cabinet Office Briefing Room A
w:Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms

(UK politics) Initialism of Cabinet Office Briefing Room A.

(UK politics, by extension) Acronym of Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms.


COBRA

(UK politics, by extension) A cabinet committee meeting that would use a COBR room

(UK politics, by extension) A cabinet committee that would meet using a COBR room


Ural-Altaic

A grouping of the Uralic language family with the Altaic languages, formerly considered a language family, now treated as an area of linguistic convergence, or possibly a sprachbund (like Altaic itself).


Moghul

Borrowed from Iranian Persian مغول (moğul) (for the spellings moghul and mogul) or from Classical Persian مغول (muğūl, muğōl) and Urdu مغل (muġal) (for other spellings), an Arabic and Persian corruption of Mongol, ultimately from Middle Mongol ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ (mongɣol). More at Mughal.


CPS

Last year, for example, Raab wrote a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) – since the birth of Thatcherism one of the radical right's fiercest thinktanks […]

2012 August 22, Andy Beckett, “Britannia Unchained: the rise of the new Tory right”, in The Guardian:

Centre for Policy Studies
w:Centre for Policy Studies

(UK politics) Initialism of Centre for Policy Studies.


Safavid

From Persian صفوی (Safavi) + -id, from Arabic صَفَوِيّ (Ṣafawiyy), from صَفِيّ (Ṣafiyy, “Safi-ad-Din Ardabili”) + ـَوـ (-aw-, interfix) + ـِيّ (-iyy, “-i, -y”, suffix forming adjectives and relational nouns).

Relating to the Safavid dynasty, a Muslim dynasty which ruled Iran between the 16th and 18th centuries.


Safavid

(informal) A member of the Safavid Empire, an Iranian.


Juliett

A female given name from Latin, of rare usage, variant of Juliet.


Ishmael

From Hebrew יִשְׁמָעֵאל (yishma'él (yišmāʿēl), “God hears, God will hear”).

der

Call me Ishmael.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Loomings”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 1:


hangul

[Alt: 한글 ㅎ=h ㅏ=a ㄴ=n ㄱ=g ㅡ=eu ㄹ=l]
From Korean 한글 (han'geul, “Korean script”).

The phonetic alphabet used to write the Korean language.


Ramadan

/ɹɑːməˈdɑːn/

/ˈɹɑːmədɑːn/

Transliteration of Arabic رَمَضَان (ramaḍān); see there for more.

translit

A male given name from Arabic, of Muslim usage.


defender

From Middle English defender, deffender, defendere, defendour, defendoure, partly from Anglo-Norman defendour, from Old French defendëor; partly from Middle English defenden + -ere, equivalent to defend + -er.

(Scots law) A defendant in a civil action.


Ugric

From Russian у́гры (úgry), the name of an indigenous people dwelling east of the Urals, + -ic.

A group of languages that includes Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi.


Kapingamarangi

The Austronesian language spoken in the Federated States of Micronesia, especially by the inhabitants of Kapingamarangi.


Guillaume

From French. Doublet of Guillermo, William, and Wilhelm, etc.


ARV

alien reproduction vehicle
alien reproduction vehicle#English

(ufology) Initialism of alien reproduction vehicle.


Derek

Borrowed in the Middle Ages from a Middle Low German variant of Theodoric, and revived in the nineteenth century. Not related to Hebrew דֶּרֶךְ (déreḵ, “road”).

"Do you think so? Her husband has an odd name - Derek Keppel. He is a musician - a violinist."

1895, The American Magazine, Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, page 446:

We do not entertain as much anymore because of Derek. (He produces strain. We have to pretend he doesn't.) I used to like him when I still thought he was normal. I was fond of him. I used to call him Dirk, and Kiddo, Steamshovel, Dinky Boy, and Dicky Dare. Till I found out what he was. Now it's always formal: Derek.

1974, Joseph Heller, Something happened, →ISBN, page 509:

Frederick or Derek Boothby was in his late fifties, the son of a naval officer and a daughter of the Earl of Limerick.

2010, James Robertson, And the Land Lay Still, Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN, page 292:

A male given name from the Germanic languages.


Vancouverite

Those frolicking in Vancouver's recreational areas shouldn't be surprised to end up in the middle of a rather messy sloshball game or ultimate Frisbee tournament; Vancouverites tend to leave their big-city attitudes at home.

1995, Pacific Northwest & Alaska: on the loose, Fodor's, page 325:

(Canada) A native or resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.


Neptunian

From Latin Neptūnius (“of or pertaining to the Roman god Neptune”), from Neptūnus (“the Roman god Neptune”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *nebʰ- (“to become damp, cloudy”)) + -ius (suffix forming adjectives from nouns); analysable as Neptune + -ian. The English word is cognate with French neptunien (“pertaining to the Roman god Neptune, pertaining to the sea, pertaining to Neptunism, Neptunian; proponent of Neptunism, Neptunist”), German Neptunier (“proponent of Neptunism, Neptunist”).

cog

The Tomb disburd'ning, whence the Ghoſt aroſe / Of great Achilles; Such when Thracian Foes / (The Prelude of thy Fates, Troy!) he o'rethrew, / And the white hair'd Neptunian Cycnus [i.e., Neptune's son] ſlew.

1679, Lucius Annaeus Seneca [i.e., Seneca the Younger], translated by Edward Sherburne, Troades: Or The Royal Captives. A Tragedy, Written Originally in Latin, […], London: Printed by Anne Godbid, and John Playford, for Samuel Carr, […], →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 21:

(Roman mythology) Of or pertaining to Neptune, the Roman god of fresh water and the sea, the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon.


Neptunian

We are not ourselves, bigotted Neptunians or Vulcanians: we perceive difficulties whichever theory be adopted: and provided the earth be but stable under us, we are not anxiously jealous for the dignity of the trident-wielding power, or for the honour of the hammer-working deity.

1807 October, “View of the Mineralogy, Agriculture, Manufactures, and Fisheries, of the Island of Arran, […] by the Rev. James Headrick. pp. 395. Price 10s. 6d. Constable and Co. Edinburgh: Murray, London, 1807. [book review]”, in The Literary Panorama. Being a Review of Books, Magazine of Varieties, and Annual Register, volume III, London: Printed by Cox, Son, and Baylis, […], [f]or C[harles] Taylor, […], published March 1808, →OCLC, column 57:

Its [obsidian's] origin is warmly contested between the Neptunians and Plutonians, many of the latter denominating it a vitreous lava.

1813, John Mason Good, Olinthus Gregory, Newton Bosworth, “OBSIDIAN”, in Pantologia. A New Cyclopædia, Comprehending a Complete Series of Essays, Treatises, and Systems, Alphabetically Arranged; […], volumes VIII (MID–OZO), London: Printed for G. Kearsley; [et al.], →OCLC, column 1:

As to the two theories, neither will suffice alone. The neptunian is utterly inadequate to explain the phenomena of basalt; nor can a vulcanist account for the appearance of an hydrophane.—We need both explanations. Those geologists who have travelled in the north of Europe, are generally neptunians; those who have made their observations in the south of the same regions, are generally vulcanists.

1817 April, “Art. IV.—An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology, being an Introduction to the Study of Those Sciences, […] By Parker Cleaveland, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and Lecturer in Chymistry and Mineralogy in Bowdoin College, &c. &c. Boston, 1816. Large 8vo. pp. 668.”, in The Analectic Magazine, volume IX, Philadelphia, Pa.: Published by Moses Thomas, →OCLC, pages 312–313:

(geology, historical) A proponent of Neptunism.


Neptunian

From Neptune (“eighth planet in the solar system”) + -ian.

suffix

I need not say that from Neptune the earth is completely invisible, as well as Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. Saturn is a little star which departs from the sun up to 18°. For the Neptunians the solar system appears to be composed of the sun, Saturn, Uranus, their own world, and the planet which doubtless gravitates beyond Neptune.

1894, Camille Flammarion, “The Planet Neptune and the Frontiers of the Solar Domain”, in J[ohn] Ellard Gore, transl., Popular Astronomy: A General Description of the Heavens: … Translated from the French with the Author’s Sanction, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 470:

We learn the energy quotient of a bogus Earthling, note how much it varies from that of a genuine one, and then proceed to carefully single out every Neptunian. It will take time, no doubt, but not perhaps as long as we think, as the percentage of Neptunians to Earthlings is small.

1952, John Russell Fearn, chapter 12, in Quorne Returns (The Golden Amazon Saga; book 6), [Rockville, Md.]: Wildside Press, published 2013, →ISBN, page 102:

Pretend that you are a visitor to Earth from the planet Neptune. When you return home you will want to describe Earthlings to your fellow Neptunians. [...] Good luck! Or as Neptunians say, "Urk bliff!"

2001, Justin McCory Martin, “March”, in Marvelous Month-by-month Writing Prompts: 250 Knock-their-socks-off Writing Prompts to Inspire Super Writing All Year Long!, New York, N.Y.: Scholastic Professional Books, →ISBN, page 43:

Since Neptune had been the chosen planet to help Earth work through its current series of crises, Neptunians were key beings at this time. Each visit to Earth was a specific mission for those who were chosen to travel there.

2001 April 12, Patricia Ann Pich, “Neptune”, in Out of this World: A Fairy Tale for Children of All Ages, [Bloomington, Ind.]: 1stBooks, →ISBN, pages 5–6:

(chiefly science fiction) An (imaginary) inhabitant of the planet Neptune.


Ashley

en-proper noun

Ashley (countable and uncountable, plural Ashleys)

From Old English *Æsċlēah, composed of æsċ (“ash tree”) + lēah (“wood, clearing”). Equivalent to Ash + -ley.

'There now, Scarlett! You admit it is true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.'

1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter III, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC:

A male given name transferred from the surname.

But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.

1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls:

I discovered that her full name was Margaret Lowell. I wasn't an expert on Earth names, but I still knew this was wildly inappropriate. She should have been called Lana Bellcurve or Ashley Brainsex or something.

2013, Matt Haig, The Humans, Canongate, →ISBN, page 832:

A female given name transferred from the surname.


FCO

Foreign and Commonwealth Office
w:Foreign and Commonwealth Office

(British, UK politics) Initialism of Foreign and Commonwealth Office.


Jovian

en-adj

Jovian (comparative more Jovian, superlative most Jovian)

more Jovian (comparative)
most Jovian (superlative)

From Latin Iovis, genitive of Iuppiter, analysable as Jove + -ian.

(astronomy) Pertaining to the planet Jupiter.

He did not admit of equals. But as a patron he was superb. With his Jovian air, his colossal condescension, his amused smile, his general suggestion of the god descending to the mortal, he could be quite overpowering in his amiability.

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(Roman mythology) Pertaining to the Roman god Jove or Jupiter (the counterpart of the Greek god Zeus); Jove-like; befitting Jupiter.


Jovian

(chiefly science fiction) An imaginary inhabitant of the planet Jupiter.


Muhammad

Transliteration of Arabic مُحَمَّد (muḥammad, “praised, commendable, laudable”), the passive participle of حَمَّدَ (ḥammada, “to praise, commend, laud, extol”). From the same triconsonantal root ح م د (ḥ-m-d) as, but distinct from, Mahmud.

translit

Mahomet was the predominant form until the late 1700s. Mohammed was the predominant form from then until the 1940s

which has been predominant ever since. Other forms which are now quite common are Mohammad

which all came into common use after the 1820s

(countable) A male given name from Arabic very popular among Muslims.

Muhamed

fairly common historically but uncommon today:

Muħammad

derived from modern scholarly transliterations of Arabic:


Fleet Street

From the (now underground) River Fleet, over which much of Fleet Street runs.

And it is to bee ſeene in London, at the red Lyon, in Fleteſtreete.

1569, C. R., The true discripcion of this marueilous straunge Fishe, whiche was taken on thursday was sennight, the .xvi. day of June, this present month, in the yeare of our Lord God. M.DLX.ix.:

A street in Westminster borough, London, England, United Kingdom, that runs from Ludgate Hill to the Strand; formerly the centre of English journalism.


MSA

Modern South Arabian
Modern South Arabian#English


TD

en-noun

TD (countable and uncountable, plural TDs)

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O'Callaghan, whose Dublin constituency is home to one of Accenture's office here, said: […]

2023 August 1, “Accenture cuts 890 more job from Irish operation”, in The Irish Times, page 1:

(Irish politics) Initialism of Teachta Dála, a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland.


Mi'kmaq

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Mi'kmaq.wav

The polysynthetic Eastern Algonquian language spoken by this people, closely related to Maliseet and Passamaquoddy.


PSI

Policy Studies Institute
w:Policy Studies Institute

(UK politics) Initialism of Policy Studies Institute, a British think tank.


Majorism

(UK politics) The political and economic policies of the British Conservative prime minister Sir John Major.


Cooper

en-prop

Cooper (countable and uncountable, plural Coopers)

(countable) A male given name transferred from the surname.


Old Bailey

Originally "The Bailey", a street running outside the western wall of medieval London; from the word bailey, a Middle English term for the outermost wall or court of a fortification. The courthouse built nearby in the 16th century, alongside old Newgate Prison, took its name from the street.

A street in the City between Holborn Circus and St Paul's Cathedral.

The Central Criminal Court in this street; the Crown Court in the City of London.

(by extension) The English legal system.


Stuart

en-proper noun

Stuart (countable and uncountable, plural Stuarts)


Whitehall

Whitehall (countable and uncountable, plural Whitehalls)

From Middle English whit (“white”) + halgh (“corner, nook; hall”).

A wide street in Westminster between Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square; it houses several government offices.

Britain's securocracy - Whitehall spymasters, backed up by government lawyers, engaged in the increasingly thankless task of preserving state secrets - are faced with an intriguing conundrum. What do they do when the bulwark they have been relying on for so long to protect their secrets crumbles before their eyes?

2000 July 27, Richard Norton-Taylor, “Analysis: The secret's out”, in the Guardian:

It notes: "The Welsh Government's view is that genuine 'levelling up' cannot simply mean a sprinkling of new, ad hoc rail projects decided in Whitehall, it has to be part of a strategic approach to promoting growth in all parts of the UK."

2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “When will Wales's wish for rail improvements come true?”, in Rail, page 32:

(UK politics, by extension, metonymically) The British government or civil service

Former spelling of White Hall, California.

A city and township in Muskegon County, Michigan, United States.

A township in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Trempealeau County
Trempealeau County#English

A city, the county seat of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, United States.


Nat

Nat (countable and uncountable, plural Nats)

Coordinate term: Nate

Nathan was one of the tiniest, tottering along, holding on to the hand of a much older girl. Nat. Small like a gnat.

2008, Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 27:

A diminutive of the male given name Nathanael, Nathaniel, Nathan

A diminutive of the female given name Natasha, Natalie, Natalia


Nat

(slang, informal, UK politics) A member or supporter of the Scottish National Party.


Square Mile

From square mile
* (London): The City's land area is about 1.12 square miles and roughly square in shape.
* (Montreal): Ellipsis of Golden Square Mile.. From having a land area of roughly a mile square.

(London, informal) Synonym of City of London.

Golden Square Mile
Golden Square Mile#English

(Montreal) Synonym of Golden Square Mile


Fran

A diminutive of the female given names Frances and Francine.

A diminutive of the male given name Francis.


Edith

Inherited from Old English Ēadġȳþ, from Proto-Germanic *audaz (“wealth, riches”) + *gunþiz (“battle”). Name of a 10th century English saint.

inh

Edith's pretty, but it looks / Better in old English books.

1809, Charles and Mary Lamb, Poetry for Children: Choosing a Name:

But suppose she had had an elder sister with a beautiful name like Edith. My conviction was deep and immovable that had I been named something really pretty like that, I would have found it easy to sew neatly and know my lessons.

1903, Elizabeth Bisland, A Candle of Understanding, Harper&Brothers, page 11:

- - but they went and gave it to this woman named Edith, if you can believe that any woman with a name like Edith would have a clue about what's fashionable." "Edith Head?" I said. "The Oscar-winning costume designer?"

2009, Linwood Barclay, Fear the Worst, Banrtam Books, →ISBN, page 76:


Gen

Hal. Oh, don't fuss, Gen. I'll do my part all right. Mamma's 'structed me, you know.
Genevieve. Instructed, Hal.

“Gen? Listen, I'm so sorry I did that, Gen. You gotta believe me. I'm not like this and you know it.” “Listen...Kyle, I...I don't think I want to see you anymore.” Genevieve's voice cracked. “Gen!”

2017, Emma G Prince, The Silent Life of Genevieve, →ISBN:

A female given name, a short form of Genevieve.


Alanna

A feminine form of Alan; variant spelling of Alana. Compare also Alannah.

A female given name from the Celtic languages.


Patricia

From Latin patricia (“noble”); later also seen as the feminine form of the saint's name Patrick.

"[…] Our house is not of the era of Queen Isabella, but of the Princess Patricia."
"That sounds like Aunt Isabel. They always called me Patricia there. Don't you think, papa, now that I'm getting so grown up, I ought to be called Patricia? Patty is such a baby name."
"Patty is good enough for me," said Mr. Fairfield. "If you want to be called Patricia, you must get somebody else to do it. I dare say you could hire somebody for a small sum per week to call you Patricia for a given number of times every day."
"Now, you're making fun of me, papa; but I do want to grow up dignified, and not be a silly schoolgirl all my life."

1904, Carolyn Wells, “Shopping”, in Patty at Home, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, →OCLC, page 56:

"Trix" was a derivation of Trish, our mother's girlhood name, or cognomen, as she called it; Trish was itself a derivation of Patricia. Trix disliked her original name because she thought it prissy and old-fashioned, but she didn't much like "Trix" either.

1991, Joyce Carol Oates, Heat And Other Stories, Dutton, →ISBN:


Averil

A rare variant of the 7th century saint's name Everild, from Old English eofor (“boar”) + hild (“battle”).


Rudolph

From German Rudolph, Rudolf (compare Proto-Germanic *Hrōþiwulfaz).

A male given name from the Germanic languages.


Melbournite

(Australia, slang, often humorous, sometimes mildly, derogatory) a resident of Melbourne, Australia


Harari

The Ethiosemitic language of these people.


Medina

* The province and city in Saudi Arabia is derived from Arabic اَلْمَدِينَة (al-madīna, “the city”). Doublet of Mdina.
* The river and former borough on the Isle of Wight are derived from Old English Meðune (“the middle one”).
* The river and county in Texas are derived from the Spanish surname Medina.

bor

اَلْمَدِينَة

A female given name transferred from the surname


The Mall

From the game pall mall, once played there. The American landmark is named after the avenue in London.

A wide avenue in London leading from Trafalgar Square and Admiralty Arch to Buckingham Palace; used as a ceremonial route.


Vishnu

Transliteration of Sanskrit विष्णु (viṣṇu).

translit

A male given name from Sanskrit used in India.


Pall Mall

From pall mall, the name of a game once played there.

An unincorporated community in Fentress County, Tennessee, United States, named after Pall Mall in London.


Ludgate Hill

Despite the claim by the Norman-Welsh Geoffry of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae that Ludgate was so called for having been built by the ancient British king called Lud—a manifestation of the god Nodens—the name is believed by later writers to be derived from "flood gate" or "Fleet gate", from "ludgeat", meaning "back gate" or "postern", or from the Old English term "hlid-geat", meaning "postern" or "swing gate".

Ludgate Hill
Ludgate Hill railway station

It belonged to that incredible trio, St. Paul's, Ludgate Hill and Holborn, so close together that a long train could almost be in all three stations at once. Ludgate Hill has gone into the dusty limbo of forgotten stations, but its subterranean brassy bar long survived in the arches below, [...].

1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 356:

A street in the City of London that runs from St Paul's Churchyard, joining Fleet Street at Ludgate Circus. There was once a railway station named Ludgate Hill.


Tupian

A language family in South America (the Tupian languages).


Tassie

From Tasmania + -ie (diminutive suffix).

(informal, Australia) A Tasmanian, a person from Tasmania.


Bohemian

From Bohemia + -ian.
In sense of Romani and by association, marginalized artists, from French bohémien (“person from Bohemia, Romani”), from Bohême (“Bohemia”). Regarding the sense evolution, compare gypsy.


Blairite

The Blairites came up with young country and new this, new that, but it was cosmetic.

2001 August 27, Madeleine Bunting, “The end is nigh: pessimism rules”, in The Guardian:

(UK politics, informal) A supporter of Tony Blair, British prime minister from 1997 to 2007, or his policies.


Blairite

(UK politics) Relating to Blairites or to Tony Blair's government and policies.


Belauan

A language spoken in the Pacific, in the Republic of Palau. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is considered to be one of two languages in Micronesia belonging to the Western Austronesian group, all others considered to be members of the Oceanic subgroup.


Kyle

en-proper noun

Kyle (countable and uncountable, plural Kyles)

From several places in Scotland and Northern Ireland, derived from Gaelic caol (“narrows”).

Wally Szalla was the least discomforting of men, nothing like the pushy arrogant guys I was always meeting, or who were always meeting me. Guys with names like Dale, Brock, Kevin, Kyle. Guys with names nothing like Wally.

2005, Joyce Carol Oates, Missing Mom, Ecco, →ISBN, page 110:

A male given name transferred from the surname.

(uncommon) A female given name transferred from the surname.

A census-designated place in South Dakota, United States

A placename
A city in Texas, United States


Alec

A diminutive of the male given name Alexander, from Ancient Greek, of Scottish origin.


TCA

Labour, which has said it will not take the UK back into the EU, the single market or customs union, has, however, already committed to using the 2025 review of the TCA to try to reduce barriers to trade.

2023 February 11, Toby Helm, “Revealed: secret cross-party summit held to confront failings of Brexit”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

Trade and Cooperation Agreement
w:EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

(European politics, UK politics) Initialism of Trade and Cooperation Agreement.


Adolph

A male given name from the Germanic languages.


Halle

* As a German surname, variant of Hall.
* As a French surname, from the noun halle (“covered room”).
* As a Belgian and Dutch surname, from Halle, Belgium.
* As a Jewish surname, from Halle in Saxony, named after the river Saale.

A female given name, alternative spelling of Hallie. popularized by american actress Halle Berry


Bicolano

/bɪkəˈlɑːnəʊ/

A language spoken in the Bicol Region, Philippines.


Nihongo

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Nihongo.wav

From Japanese Nihongo, the romaji of 日本語(にほんご) (nihongo).

(rare except in the Philippines; Japanism) Synonym of Japanese: the Japanese language.


ETI

Ethical Trading Initiative
Extraterrestrial intelligence

Initialism of Ethical Trading Initiative.


Mick

A diminutive of the male given name Michael.


Ari

אֲרִי ארי#Hebrew

לייב לייב#Yiddish

A male given name from Hebrew, of Jewish usage, variant of Arieh (also transcribed as Aryeh, Arye). Ari derives directly from Hebrew: אֲרִי (arí, “lion”); compare Yiddish: לייב (leyb, “Leib”), English: Leo, Leon, French: Léo, Léon, Czech: Lev, Polish: Lew, Russian: Лев (Lev), and Ukrainian: Лев (Lev).

A diminutive of the female given names Arianna or Ariana, also used as a formal given name.


Helen

→ Danish: Helen

→ Estonian: Helen

→ Hawaiian: Helena

→ Norwegian: Helen

→ Swedish: Helen

From French Hélène, from Latin Helena, from Ancient Greek Ἑλένη (Helénē). Doublet of Elaine.

"Is her name Ellen or Helen, Miss Viner? I thought —"
Miss Viner closed her eyes.
"I can sound my h's, dear, as well as anyone, but Helen is not a suitable name for a servant. I don't know what the mothers in the lower classes are coming to nowadays."

1928, Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train:

...in 1910 she brought Helen into the world, the little female, or "mujercita", as her mother called all the babies, naming her after the glittery label on a facial ointment, The Helen of Troy Beauty Pomade, said to eradicate wrinkles, to soften and add a youthful glow to the user's skin - a fortuitous choice because, of all the sisters, she would be the most beautiful and, never growing old, would always possess the face of a winsome adolescent beauty.

1993, Oscar Hijuelos, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, →ISBN, page 6:

Gemma followed her, thinking that Helen seemed rather an old-fashioned and elegant name for this rumpled young mother.

2003, Deborah Crombie, A Share in Death, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 189:


ot

Old Cyrillic script
Appendix:Old Cyrillic script#English

The name of the Old Cyrillic script letter Ѿ / ѿ.


Proto-Uralic

The ancestor language of the Uralic language family, usually written with the UPA-transcription system.


reptilian

From reptile + -ian, replacing earlier reptilious and adjectival reptile.

More evolved than the Grays or Reptilians, the Humanoids seem to feel some sort of kinship with humans and are likely to be kind.[…] Some researchers believe the Grays are merely preparing the way for a full-scale invasion of Reptilian aliens.

2001, Caroline Tiger, The UFO Hunter’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Paranormal, →ISBN, pages 62–63:

Such powerful human families would descend upon the reptilians themselves and they would be willing to do just anything to retain their power.

2010, Chico Penteado, Talking to the Reptilians-A Report from Brazil, →ISBN, page 11:

The reptilians are the creation of the Carians.

2011, Collin Robert Bowling, A New Order of the Ages, →ISBN:

Reptilians generally are envisioned as half snake, half human, and they are thought to have come from the Alpha Draconian star system.

2015, Marty Crump, Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog, Adder's Fork and Lizard's Leg, →ISBN:

(science fiction) A reptilian alien, especially (ufology, often capitalized) of a shapeshifting race alleged to secretly control the world.


Phoenician

Attested as a noun in Middle English as phenicienes (only plural); from Ancient Greek Φοῖνιξ (Phoînix, “Phoenician”).

der

The Semitic language spoken by the inhabitants of Phoenicia.


Sheandra

(rare) A female given name originating as a coinage, of modern usage.


extradimensional

(science fiction) Coming from a world outside Einsteinian space-time.


New Labour

From the slogan “New Labour, New Britain”, used by Tony Blair in his 1994 Labour Party Conference speech.

(UK politics) A movement in the 1990s and 2000s to rebrand the British Labour Party by discarding traditional goals such as nationalization and socialism.


Hausa

A people living in Nigeria and part of Niger.


Hausa

She tells me she’s been intensively studying Hausa these past weeks, that it’s such a unique and precise language, one that you write the way you speak it, very historical and more Arabian than she’d thought.

2023, Stephen Buoro, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, Bloomsbury Circus, page 191:

The Chadic language spoken by these people.


Lucia

Latinate variant of Lucy, or today borrowed from modern Italian. Name of a Sicilian martyr, Latin Lūcia, feminine form of the Roman praenomen Lūcius.


Mamduh

A male given name from Arabic that means "[a] praised [person]", or someone who is always mentioned in a positive way.


Threadneedle Street

Corruption of "three needle", from the arms of the Needle-makers' Company. Influenced by threading a needle.

A street in London, running from Poultry and Lombard Street to Bishopsgate; the site of the Bank of England.


Faheem

From Arabic فَهِيم (fahīm, “to understand”).


Stephanie

From French Stéphanie. The standard English feminine form of Stephen.

Allison made a careful note of the address and within the hour she had met, decided she liked, and moved in with a girl of twenty who called herself Steve Wallace.
"Don't call me Stephanie", Steve had said. "I don't know why it should, but being called Stephanie always makes me feel like something pale and dull out of Jane Austen."

1956, Grace Metalious, Peyton Place, UPNE, published 1999, →ISBN, Book Three,Chapter 13:


Frenchwoman

A French woman; a woman of French ancestry, descent or citizenship.


Mackenzie

Spelling pronunciation of Scots MacKenȝie with the letter yogh confused with Z. Ultimately from Scottish Gaelic MacCoinnich, itself from mac (“son, descendant”) + Coinnich (“of Coinneach”).

compound

A female given name transferred from the surname, of 1970s and later usage, also in the form Makenzie.

Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories#English

A river in the Northwest Territories, the longest in Canada, running from Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea.

Fraser-Fort George
Fraser-Fort George#English

British Columbia
British Columbia#English

A district municipality in the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, central British Columbia, Canada.

St. Louis County
St. Louis County#English

An unincorporated community in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States.


Diganta

From Hindi, dirgh (long) + Anta (end) = horizon.

A male given name from India, of Indian (particularly Assamese) usage.


Fuamnach

(Irish mythology) Midir's rejected first wife, who became jealous of Midir's lover Étaín, casting three spells on Étain, turning her into a pool of water, then into a worm, and then into a fly.


Étaín

(Irish mythology) The lover of Midir whose rejected first wife Fuamnach became jealous and cast three spells on her, turning her into a pool of water, then into a worm, and then into a fly.


Midir

(Irish mythology) The son of the Dagda of the Tuatha Dé Danann who fell in love with Étaín, receiving Aengus's help to make her his new bride.


Lugh

Borrowed from Irish Lugh, from Old Irish Lug, from Primitive Irish ᚂᚒᚌ (lug), from Proto-Celtic *Lugus.

(Irish mythology) A pre-Christian Irish deity represented in mythological texts as a hero and High King of the distant past: the son of Cian and Ethniu.

Samh-ildánach ()

Summer-multi-talented; skilled in many arts


ef

I have drunk en-ee-cee-tee-ay-ar from the ef-ell-oh-doubleyou-ee-ar-ess in his gee-ay-ar-dee-ee-en many a time.

2004, Will Rogers, The Stonking Steps, page 170:

The name of the Latin-script letter F/f.


Tailtiu

(Irish mythology) A presumed goddess who was the survivor of the invasion of Tuatha Dé Danann and was the foster mother of Lugh.


Hoosier

Uncertain. See Wikipedia's article on the subject for theories. Popularized by the 1830 John Finley poem “The Hoosier’s Nest”.

Indiana’s Borderlanders called themselves Hoosiers, came from the backcountry of Kentucky and western Virginia, and were ambivalent about slavery.

2011, Colin Woodard, chapter 16, in American nations, New York: Penguin, →ISBN:

A native or resident of the U.S. state of Indiana.


Cayuse

Adapted from French cailloux, a pre-existing French word. The reason this word came to be used for the tribe is unknown; see the Wikipedia article for theories.


Yehudi

From Hebrew יְהוּדִי (yehudí, “Jew”). Related to Judah. An endonym for and doublet of Jew.

A male given name from Hebrew of Jewish usage.


Frenchman

From Middle English Frenshman; equivalent to French + -man.

red-legged partridge
red-legged partridge


North American

A person living in or originating from North America.

One of a supernational region within North America

One of a country or nation within North America

One of a country or nation within Central America

One of a country or nation within the Caribbean

One of a dependency within North America


Ava

Ava Haynes, the oldest daughter, was a warm friend of Lillie Calhoun, whom she soon sought and led quickly into the conservatory.

1881, Mary E. Jackson, The Spy of Osawatomie; or, The Mysterious Companions of Old John Brown, W.S.Bryan, page 57:

My mother named me Ava because she liked how the English letters looked - the big A a beak pointed upward, the v a sharp slash of wings, the small a round and flat as a parrot's eye.

2004, Gayle Brandeis, The Book of Dead Birds: A Novel, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 5:

A female given name from Hebrew, a variant of Eva.

A female given name from Irish, an anglicization of Aoife.

A female given name from the Germanic languages, from a Germanic root *avi of uncertain meaning.


South American

A person from or living in South America.


Karen

From Danish Karen, a vernacular form of Catherine that arose in medieval Denmark. The sense "middle-aged woman" comes from the popularity of the name among baby boomers and Gen-Xers. The derogatory usage was popularized via African-American Vernacular English.

Left you a lover in that far land, / O Karen sad, that you pine so long! / Would I could unravel and understand / That sorrowful, sweet Norwegian song!

1878 Celia Thaxter, Drift-Weed, Houghton, Osgood,1878, page 28 ("Karen")

I was not called Karen after Hans Andersen's dancing girl, but after a Danish friend of my mother's who married an Englishman and was my godmother. So much for our family affairs.

1918 Cecily Ullman Sidgwick, Karen, W.Collins, 1918, page 12


Karen

From Parthian 𐭊𐭓𐭍𐭉 (krny /Kārēn/), from Old Iranian. The Armenian name is from Armenian Կարեն (Karen), from the same Parthian name.

Կարեն Կարեն#Armenian

A transliteration of the Armenian male given name Կարեն (Karen).


Ekavian

A dialect or group of dialects of Serbo-Croatian spoken primarily in Serbia and distinguished by reflecting the Common Slavic jat (Old Cyrillic: ѣ, Glagolitic: ⱑ, Latin transcription /ě/) sound as /e/.


Fachtna Fáthach

(Irish mythology) The High King of Ireland in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology who was deposed by Eochaid Feidlech at the Battle of Leitir Ruadh.


Eochaid Feidlech

(Irish mythology) The High King of Ireland in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, who deposed the former High King Fachtna Fáthach at the battle of Battle of Leitir Ruadh.


Fráech

From Middle Irish Fráech, from Old Irish Fróech, from fróech (“heather”), from Proto-Celtic *wroikos.

(Irish mythology) The Connacht hero in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology who wooed Findabair and Treblann, but was drowned in a river in a duel with Cúchulainn.


Nera

(Irish mythology) A warrior of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.


Rt Hon

Right Honourable
Right Honourable#English

Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament

(UK and Commonwealth politics) Abbreviation of Right Honourable. (in the titles of Members of Parliament)


Sherri

A female given name, variant of Sherry or Cheri.


highlander

(Scotland) A person who inhabits the Scottish Highlands.


Wanda

From Polish Wanda, possibly derived from an ethnic term for “a Wend”.

"Speaking of names, you're the first white Wanda I ever met."
Wanda peeled off two sweaters and a woolen scarf." Well, you're the fifth or sixth colored I've had to tell that Wanda is an old Polish name I inherited from my Polish great-grandmother on me sweet dead mother's side;

1998, Barbara Neely, Blanche Cleans Up, Penguin, published 1999, →ISBN, page 12:


Norse

en-adj

Norse (comparative more Norse, superlative most Norse)

more Norse (comparative)
most Norse (superlative)

Partly from Dutch Noorsch (now Noors (“Norwegian”)), from noordsch (“northern; nordic”); and partly from Danish norsk (“Norwegian”). Both equivalent to north + -ish. Doublet of Norsk.

Of or relating to the people, language and culture of Scandinavia.

Of or relating to the North Germanic group of languages.


Norse

Speakers of any of the North Germanic languages.


Norse

(US printing, rare, dated) A size of type between Saxon and excelsior, 2+¹⁄₂-point type.


Evan

Anglicization of Welsh Ifan, ultimately from Latin Johannes, variant of Ioannes, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), from Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān, literally “God is gracious”). Doublet of John, Jack, Johan, Johann, Johannes, Jean, Ian, Ivan, Sean, Shaun, Shane, and Giovanni.

doublet

A male given name from Welsh Ifan, equivalent to English John.


Canuck

American Dialect Society
Greenwood Publishing Group
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Leiden University
University of Alabama Press

Origin uncertain, often hypothesized to derive from the name or speech of an early Canadian minority, later broadened to denote all Canadians:
* Since 1975, many scholars have come to think the name is from Hawaiian kanaka (“man”), a self-appellation of indentured colonial canoemen and Hawaiian sailors working off the Pacific Northwest, Arctic, and New England coasts, from French canaque (“indigenous Melanesian inhabitant of New Caledonia, Kanak”); or, more likely, American whalers’ pidgin, then re-interpreted as Can(adian) + a suffix. Compare English Kanak and German Kanake.
* Some dictionaries suggest it is derived from the first syllable of Canada, or its etymon Laurentian kanata (“village”), or a related word kanuchsa meaning “villager” in either Laurentian or another Iroquoian language; with the second syllable connected to Inuktitut inuk (“man; person”), from Chinook (“Aboriginal people of the U.S. Pacific Northwest”), or another First-Nation language ending like -oc, -uc, or -uq.
* Fanciful and unlikely suggestions include German genug von Canada (literally “enough of Canada”) (allegedly uttered by German mercenaries during the American War of Independence), French quelle canule (“what a bore”) (allegedly uttered by the French during a siege of Quebec), or the surname Connaught /ˈkɑ.nəxt/ (supposedly a French-Canadian nickname for the Irish).

noncog

French Canadian
French Canadian#Adjective

(Canada, US, informal, sometimes derogatory) A Canadian person; specifically (archaic), a French Canadian person; a pea-souper; also (obsolete) a Canadian person of other non-English descent.

(ice hockey) A member of the Vancouver Canucks professional ice hockey team belonging to the National Hockey League.

Canucksin pelaaja

(skiing) Chiefly as Crazy Canuck: a member of the Canadian alpine ski team.

Canadians are somewhat jealous of the Americans; that they are secretly manœuvering, not exactly with the inoffensive good humor of a much respected yeoman of England, […] but rather after the inordinate example of Ahab of old, so pithily recorded by the sacred historian. Jonathan distinguishes a Dutch or French Canadian, by the term Kanuk.

[1835, [Henry Cook Todd], Notes upon Canada and the United States of America: In the Year MDCCCXXXV […], Toronto, Ont.: […] W[illiam] J[oseph] Coates, […], →OCLC, paragraph 263, page 92:

We saw a few partridges: we also met a lusty fellow in a forest road with a keg of whisky slung round him, who called to us 'Come boys and have some grog, I'm what you call a canuck:' a (Canadian).

1849, James E[dward] Alexander, chapter XV, in L’Acadie; or, Seven Years’ Explorations in British America. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 272–273:

It is a pity these Canadian militiamen spoilt the good work they had done by never-failing bluster. But for pure and unadulterated brag I will back the lower-class Canuck against the world. The Yankee is a very sucking dove compared to his northern neighbour.

1889, John G[eorge] Donkin, chapter XIII, in Trooper and Redskin in the Far North-West: Recollections of Life in the North-West Mounted Police, Canada, 1884–1888, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington […], →OCLC, page 148:

[T]he Canucks were ready with bats, hands, feet and heads, to outplay the locals at all points. They did it to a nicety. It is wonderful to contemplate the quality of ball speiled by the Canucks when their lungs are filled with Rochester air.

1895 August 26, “Sports of field and track: Toronto 14, Rochester 11—first game”, in Democrat and Chronicle, volume 63, number 238, Rochester, N.Y.: Rochester Printing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11, column 1:

He's got a Canuck a-workin' for him, and I'd livser trust a wolf 'n one o' them pea-soupers.

1898, Rowland E[vans] Robinson, “Forebodings of Storm”, in A Hero of Ticonderoga, Burlington, Vt.: Hobart J[oseph] Shanley & Co., →OCLC, page 140:

The new-comers were a couple of farmers from Minnesota, genuine Americans from birth; wise men, with a keg of good water in their waggon. "And don't you want to be Americans any longer?" I asked. "No," said they most emphatically, "we're Canucks now."

1907 May, Howard Angus Kennedy, “The Dry Patch”, in New Canada and the New Canadians, 2nd edition, London: Horace Marshall & Son, published October 1907, →OCLC, page 192:

One person who realizes that the Canadian troops in England have healthy appetites is Corp. J. R. Johnstone, chief butcher of a unit. He and his 16 assistants drag from huge refrigerators eight tons of meat per day for the hungry Canucks; and every other day when rationing is less severe the butchers carve up 16 tons of lamb, beef and pork.

1940 August 9, “Troops pack it away”, in Toronto Daily Star, Toronto, Ont.: The Toronto Star Limited, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18, column 7:

The Scottish skip [Alex F. Torrance] missed a wide open takeout in the fifth leaving the Canucks another single.

1964 March 19, Larry Wood, “Dagg stays unbeaten: Scotch Cup winner decided tonight”, in Richard L[ouis] Sanburn, editor, The Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alta.: The Southam Company, →ISSN, page 18, column 5:

[Jack] Kerouac's writings reveal that, although celebrated as an iconic American, he thought of himself as first and foremost Canadian. In La Vie est d'Hommage, he writes, "I am French Canadian. When I am angry, I often swear in French; when I dream, I often dream in French." He went on to say that "all my knowledge comes from my being French Canadian.” But as a Canuck in the United States, he felt patronized. He needed to hide his true self. Even with his friends in New York, with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, he was "a completely different man. We have to live in English, it's impossible to live in French. This is the secret thought of the Canuck in America."

2016 June 12, Richard Stursberg, “The Secret Canadian Life of Jack Kerouac: Reading Kerouac’s Lost French Writings Reveals the Travails of a Canuck in America”, in Maclean’s, Toronto, Ont.: Maclean-Hunter Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-06-04:


Canuck

"Oh, monsieur, monsieur, ayez pitie de moi; je suis honnète et vous paierai dix fois autant." / "You blasted scoundrel that you are, I want none of your impertinence and Canuck lingo; go hunt up your dirty trash of hungry humbugs, that you shouldered upon me last evening.[…]"

1866, Andrew Learmont Spedon, “Tale III. Adventures with Religious Impostors.”, in Canadian Summer Evening Tales, Montreal, Que.: […] John Lovell, […], →OCLC, pages 71–72:

On the deacon-seat in the leapin' heat / With the corn-cobs drawin' cool and sweet, / And timin' the fiddle with tunkin' feet, / A hundred men and a chorus. / "Roule, roulant, ma boule roulant," / It 's all Canuck but a good old song; / Lift it up then, good and strong, / For a cozy night 's before us.

1904, Holman F[rancis] Day, “Kingdom o’ Spruce: Song of the Men o’ the Ax”, in Kin o’ Ktaadn: Verse Stories of the Plain Folk who are Keeping Bright the Old Home Fires up in Maine, Boston, Mass.: Small, Maynard & Company, →OCLC, page 145:

So Mama will say, Bon jour, Grack, tu viens enfin? That's Canuck for you ain't been a son to your ma. Can't you see by my skin and bones—I'm sick, I got a habit—I ain't my mama's anymore?

1956, Herbert Gold, “Round and round, the trick of want”, in The Man who was Not with It (An Avon Library Book), New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, published March 1969, →OCLC, page 179:

(historical, rare) Synonym of Canadian French (“the French language as spoken by Francophones in Canada”).

kanadanranska

synonym of Canadian French — see also Canadian French


Uranian

en-adj

Uranian (comparative more Uranian, superlative most Uranian)

more Uranian (comparative)
most Uranian (superlative)

Aphrodite Urania
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
Plato

From Latin Ūrania (“muse of astronomy in Greek mythology”) + -an (suffix forming agent nouns). Ūrania is derived from Ancient Greek Οὐρᾰνῐ́ᾱ (Ouraníā, “muse of astronomy”), from οὐράνιος (ouránios, “of or relating to the sky, celestial, heavenly”) (from οὐρανός (ouranós, “the sky; heaven, home of the gods; the universe”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁wers- (“rain”)) + -ιος (-ios, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘pertaining to’).
The alternative form Ouranian is derived from Ancient Greek οὐράνιος (ouránios).
Adjective sense 2 (“homosexual”) and the noun sense (“a homosexual”) refer to Plato’s work Symposium (c. 385–370 B.C.E.), where the goddess Aphrodite, in her heavenly aspect Aphrodite Urania (see adjective sense 3) is described as inspiring a noble form of affection between older and younger men. Compare German Urning (“a homosexual, Uranian”), Urnigtum (“homosexuality”), also referring to Aphrodite Urania, coined by the German writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) in 1864. By the 1900s, the use of the word in this sense had largely been supplanted by homosexual (see further at that entry). The term is no longer mainstream and is almost never used in modern contexts, though it has enjoyed a slight revival as a term for "gay man" as an analogue to lesbian.

der

/jʊˈɹeɪnɪən/

Hence is that secret pardon we bestow / In the true instinct of the grateful heart, / Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do / In the clear world of their Uranian art / Endures for ever; while the evil done / In the poor drama of the mortal scene, / Is but a passing cloud before the sun; [...]

1853, Edward Bulwer[-]Lytton, “The Ideal World”, in The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza IV, page 317:

Hail thou! sole Muse that, in an age of toil, / Of all the old Uranian sisterhood, / Art left to light us o'er the furrowed soil, / Of this laborious star!

1859, Owen Meredith [pseudonym; Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton], “Epilogue”, in The Wanderer, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, part III, stanza I, page 424:

At first sight the winds would appear to be if anything Ouranian powers of the upper air, yet it seems that sacrifices to the winds were buried, not burnt.

1903, Jane Ellen Harrison, “The Anthesteria. The Ritual of Ghosts and Spirits.”, in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC, page 67:

[T]hose deities which are called ‘chthonic’ or earthly are, as a matter of fact, not in any sense deities of the earth. They are, in one of their aspects associated with the ‘underworld,’ but that underworld is but a segment of their cycle; they are deities of the underworld not because they appertain to the earth or are in any sense a personification of it, but because they are, on the contrary, heavenly bodies which, in the course of their cycle, pass under the earth. They are therefore just as much ‘uranian’ as are the Olympians.

1927, Robert Briffault, “The Great Mothers”, in The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions, volume III, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, pages 146–147:

If he [the Hindu god Varuna] cannot be classed exclusively among the "gods of the sky" he nevertheless has qualities proper to the ouranian divinities. He is visva-darsata, "everywhere visible", he "separated the two worlds", the wind is his breath; [...]

1991, Mircea Eliade, “The ‘God who Binds’ and the Symbolism of Knots”, in Philip Mairet, transl., Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, Mythos paperback edition, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, pages 96–97:

Conversely, Kenneth Anger's only widely released film since 1972, Lucifer Rising (1980), uses a megalithic temple (not Stonehenge) and a number of ancient Egyptian sites in a Crowleyan ritual hymn to chthonian and ouranian deities of power and light.

2002, P. Adams Sitney, “The End of the 20th Century”, in Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943–2000, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 417:

(comparable, literary, poetic) Celestial, heavenly; uranic.

uranien

celestial, heavenly — see also celestial, heavenly

To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble – more noble than other forms.

1898 February 18?, Oscar Wilde, “Letter to Robert Ross”, in Merlin Holland, Rupert Hart-Davis, editors, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, published 2000, →ISBN, page 1019:

His [Plato's] Philosophical Eros is not the Uranian Eros which possessed the nation, and the Uranian doctrine is not primarily either philosophical or paederastic. It is a value attached to the masculine which included philosophy as masculine and paederasty when not anti-masculine, but was itself the idea and form of virtue.

1930, Arthur Lyon Raile [pseudonym; Edward Perry Warren], “The Uranian Idea”, in A Defence of Uranian Love, part the second (The Uranian Eros), [London]: Privately printed, →OCLC, pages 19–20:

Before these ideals would once again become available to "homosexuality" as a positive social identity, however, the Uranian modality of male love would be rejected by the avant-garde itself as an outworn fashion.

1994, Linda [C.] Dowling, “The Higher Sodomy”, in Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 134:

[Edward] Carpenter was disappointed by these meetings with [Walt] Whitman but began to integrate a positive homosexual view into his socialist writings. Carpenter saw the Uranian (homosexual) spirit to be more enlightened than that of the common man and believed that Uranians were the new prophets of the coming social revolution.

2003, Chuck Stewart, “Biographical Sketches”, in Gay and Lesbian Issues: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary World Issues), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 138:

Through Veiled Eyes [by John Moray Stuart-Young, published in 1908] was produced by a specialist Uranian publisher for circulation to a specialist Uranian readership, and it required the audience to identify with an adult narrator who spends the bulk of one summer "grooming" an English boy for physical intimacy. This is the sexual scenario most likely to inspire public violence in contemporary Britain, [...] Set in the context of Uranian art, however, it is possible to regard this as a desire fated to be celibate, if only by the status of the angelic love object in the real world as a "real boy, grubby, ink-stained, insolent, uncomprehending of Uranian passion and rebuffing its smallest manifestations." Such a forgiving perspective is one of the few options available to literary critics wishing to avoid the discomfort of drawing biographical conclusions from the material produced by Uranian authors such as Stuart-Young.

2006, Stephanie Newell, “‘Uranian’ Love in West Africa”, in The Forger’s Tale: The Search for Odeziaku (New African Histories), Athens, Oh.: Ohio University Press, →ISBN, page 86:

(comparable, literary, archaic) Homosexual; also, pederastic; relating to a man's erotic love for adolescent boys; (specifically) of poetry: conveying appreciation for young men.

For assuredly are there two Venuses; one, the eldest, the daughter of Uranus, born without a mother, whom we call the Uranian; the other younger, the daughter of Jupiter and Dione, whom we call the Pandemian;—of necessity must there also be two Loves, the Uranian and Pandemian companions of these goddesses. [...] [T]he attendant on the other, the Uranian, whose nature is entirely masculine, is the Love who inspires us with affection, and exempts us from all wantonness and libertinism.

a. 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Banquet. Translated from Plato.”, in Mrs. Shelley [i.e., Mary Shelley], editor, Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, … In Two Volumes, volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, published 1840, →OCLC, page 86:

That this is indeed the general tendency of his [Pausanias of Athens'] speech is made clear by two remarks that follow immediately upon his differentiating the Pandemian from the Uranian gods. [...] But what is true for Aphrodite seems to be a contradiction in terms: she is both one and two and all gods must be praised—both Uranian and Pandemian—and yet only the Uranian ought to be praised [...].

2010, Steven Berg, “Pausanias: Noble Lies and the Fulfillment of Greekness”, in Eros and the Intoxications of Enlightenment: On Plato’s Symposium (SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy), Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Athens and Enlightenment), page 27:

(not comparable, Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Of Aphrodite Urania, the heavenly aspect of the Greek goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus, as contrasted with the earthly aspect known as Aphrodite Pandemos: heavenly, spiritual.

Graced by nurses (art's nurse highly grac'd him) / Who fed him with pure marrow of the Muses; / And when he list, with moisture to refresh him, / He drunke cleare Helicon: cleare from abuses, / He bent his mind to pure Vranian vses, / Vranianie him did to heau'n vpreare: / And made to man, him demi-god appeare.

1600, Cyril Tourneur, The Transformed Metamorphosis, [London]: Printed by Valentine Sims, […], →OCLC; republished in John Churton Collins, editor, The Plays and Poems of Cyril Tourneur: […] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, […], 1878, →OCLC, page 213:

Actually, this little girl-child should have been as happy as a lark. But, she wasn't. This is because her Bengali genes had her continually wish to be a Sarasvati, or Uranian Muse, to all the males who came within her ambit – incessantly inspiring them to great works of Art or Scientific discoveries.

2007, Vivek Iyer, chapter 8, in Samlee’s Daughter: A Novel, Great Britain: Polyglot Publications, →ISBN, section I:

(not comparable, Greek mythology, dated) Relating to Urania, the Muse of astronomy.


Uranian

/jʊˈɹeɪnɪən/

[T]he fury of a fiery hot-brained Marsian, may kindle immediate and incessant wrangling and feuds; whilst a quiet placid Uranian, in his turn, may yet at times be excessively annoyed, ay, worried and tormented, by the tardiness, listlessness and inactivity of his dronish companion.

1839, A Fantastical Excursion into the Planets, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC, page 172:

And obviously, since the year of the Uranians lasts 84 of our years, the continuance of the sun above the horizon would last for many years. [...] And as with the summer day, so with the winter night, years elapse before either comes to an end. For upwards of 20 years, in a latitude corresponding to that of London, the Uranians—if there are any—never see the small Uranian sun.

1872, Richard A[nthony] Proctor, “Uranus and Neptune, the Arctic Planets”, in Other Worlds than Ours: The Plurality of Worlds Studied under the Light of Recent Scientific Researches, 3rd edition, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 171–172:

(chiefly science fiction) An inhabitant of the planet Uranus.


Ethel

Short form of names of Old English [Term?] origin beginning with Ethel-, æþele (“noble”). First used in the 19th century. Cognate to the Germanic Adela and Adele.

If it is so false, and base, and hollow, this great world […] why does Ethel Newcome cling to it? Will you be fairer, dear, with any other name than your own?

1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes, Bradbury and Evans, page 95:

Charmian Lyle had given herself her first name at the age of sixteen, upon encountering it in an English novel. Her baptismal name was Ethel. When her husband Walter was extremely angry with her, he called her Ethel.
Charmian, she thought, suited her much better. She didn't think she looked, felt, or sounded like Ethel. Nor like her middle name, which she really detested, Edna.

1979, Mary McMullen, But Nellie Was So Nice, Doubleday, page 23:

A female given name from Old English, popular at the turn of the 20th century.


Trojan

/ˈtɹəʊd͡ʒən/

/ˈtɹoʊd͡ʒən/

From old forms Troyan, Troian, Middle English Troiā̆n, from Old English Trōiān, from Latin Troiānus, from Troia (“Troy”) + -ānus, from Ancient Greek Τροίᾱ (Troíā).

Trójan

astronomical object residing at a Trojan point

A student (especially an athlete) of the University of Southern California.


Fedlimid

A male given name from Irish, borne especially by a harper and the chief-storyteller in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.


Troy

From Latin Troia, from Ancient Greek Τροία (Troía).


Troy

A male given name transferred from the surname, but today associated with the classical city.


Lyndsey

Spelling variant. A less common spelling of Lindsay or Lindsey.

A female given name transferred from the surname.


Proto-Germanic

Hypothetical prehistoric ancestor language of all Germanic languages, including English.

прагерма́нская

hypothetical prehistoric ancestor language — see also Germanic


Old Irish

The Irish language as attested from the sixth to the tenth centuries C.E., the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive texts (written in the Latin alphabet) are extant.


Old Frisian

a West Germanic language spoken on parts of the North Sea coast of modern Netherlands and Germany until the 16th century


Haligonian

(England) A native or inhabitant of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.


Dorothy

The English form of Latin Dorothea, the name of a legendary saint, from Ancient Greek Δωροθέα (Dōrothéa), from δῶρον (dôron, “gift”) + θεός (theós, “god”).

Piſt[ol]. Then, to you miſtris Dorothy, I will charge you. / Doro[thy]. Charge me? I ſcorne you, ſcuruy companion: […]

c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], signature [D4], recto:

"My name is Dorothy," said the girl, "and I am going to the Emerald City, to ask the great Oz to send me back to Kansas."

1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, “How Dorothy saved the Scarecrow”, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill., New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC, page 38:

Don't you think the world has gone steadily downhill ever since parents stopped naming their children Lucy and Dorothy and started naming them Samantha?

1990, Russell Baker, There's a Country in My Cellar, Morrow, →ISBN, page 418:


Lucy

Lucy
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Saint Lucy

From Middle English Lucy, from Old French Lucie (notably after the Christian martyr Lucia of Syracuse), from Latin Lucia (feminine of Lucius, a Roman praenomen), from lux (“light”).
The name of the Australopithecus skeleton came from the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which was being played repeatedly at the dig site camp at the time of the discovery. The slang term for LSD also derives from the song name, which many believe is essentially a reference to the drug.

Then did my younger brother Amidas / Love that same other Damzell, Lucy bright,/ To whom but little dowre allotted was;/ Her vertue was the dowre, that did delight.

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 9:

She lived unknown, and few would know / When Lucy ceased to be;/ But she is in her grave, and, oh,/ The difference to me!

1798, William Wordsworth, She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways:

But certainly there are some names which seem to belong to particular classes of character, to form the mind and even influence the destiny: Louisa, now; - is not your Louisa necessarily a die-away damsel, who reads novels, and holds her head on one side, languishing and given to love! Is not Lucy a pretty soubrette, a wearer of cast gowns and cast smiles, smart and coquettish!

1830, Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names::

Now we'll just use a fiction name / Lucy that sounds nice / A name we can remember / Without repeating twice / / My name is so old fashioned / And they are very few / But some will have a puzzled look / And whisper Lucy who?

2009 Dora Raymond, Aunt Dora's Legacy, AuthorHouse, page 19 ( Lucy Who )


Edgar

From Old English Ēadgār, the name of early English kings, from Old English ēad (“rich”) + gār (“spear”). Compare Icelandic Auðgeir.

What? did my father's godson seek your life? He whom my father nam'd? your Edgar?

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

My father was the eldest of three sons, each of whom was given Adelia's idea of a high-toned name: Norval and Edgar and Percival, Arthurian revival with a hint of Wagner.

2000, Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, Random House, →ISBN, page 62:


Amata

From Latin amāta (“loved, beloved”); feminine perfect passive participle of amāre (“love”). It can also be interpreted as the feminine form of the saint's name Amātus.

A female given name from Latin; always rare in English.


Gilgamesh

/ˈɡɪl.ɡə.mɛʃ/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-Gilgamesh.wav

Learned borrowing from Akkadian 𒄑𒂆𒈦 (Gilgameš), from Sumerian 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌 (ᵈgilgameš₂ /Gilgameš/)

lbor

A semi-legendary king of Uruk, who is the hero of the Babylonian poem Epic of Gilgamesh.


bedouin

From Old French beduin (compare French bédouin), from Arabic بَدَوِيِّين (badawiyyīn), plural of بَدَوِيّ (badawiyy), from collective noun بَدْو (badw, “nomads”).

A member of nomadic Arab tribes dwelling in the desert.


Jake

Originally a medieval variant of Jack; today also used as a diminutive form of Jacob and James.

Brett smiled at him. "I've promised to dance this with Jacob," she laughed. "You've a hell of a biblical name, Jake."

1927, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 3, in The Sun Also Rises:

Her attendant - Jake, she had called him, which seemed an appropriate name for a redheaded, no-neck redneck with the muscles of a dedicated weight lifter - -

1985, Ed McBain, Snow White and Rose Red, page 10:


Erica

A feminine form of Eric, ultimately from Old Norse. The name has also been associated with the flower genus.

But Erica Mann Jong is, alas, just as patriarchal as Erica Jong. When Thomas Mann's daughter, Erika, was alive, the confusion of names bothered me. My parents had met and admired Thomas Mann. They loved his daughter's name and wished creativity upon me. Erica means white flower in German, and queen in old Scandinavian, but to them, it meant writer.

1994, Erica Jong, Fear of Fifty, page 140:

A female given name from the Germanic languages or Old Norse.


Leslie

From a placename in Aberdeenshire, originally Lesslyn, Scottish Gaelic lios cuileann (“garden of hollies”).

der

A male given name transferred from the surname.

'Leslie with an "ie",' she had to tell everyone in England because they spelt it with a 'y'. 'Really?' Dominic's mother said, as if Leslie herself was a spelling mistake.

2010, Kate Atkinson, Started Early, took My Dog, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 19:

A female given name transferred from the surname, of mostly American usage.

A number of places in the United States:

A minor city in Searcy County, Arkansas.

A township and city therein, in Ingham County, Michigan.

Greenbrier County
Greenbrier County#English

An unincorporated community in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.


Katrina

A female given name from Ancient Greek. A variant of Catherine.


international auxiliary language

en-noun

international auxiliary language (plural international auxiliary languages)

international auxiliary languages (plural)

(linguistics) A language intended to be used by people who do not share a common language.


All Blacks

the national rugby union representative team of New Zealand


Pech

An indigenous Amerindian language spoken in Honduras.


Constantine

From Latin Cōnstantīnus, the name of Roman emperors, Latin cōnstāns (“constant, steadfast”). Doublet of Konstadinos.

Helen, the mother of great Constantine
 Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:


Robbie

A diminutive of the male given name Robert, particularly popular in Scotland.

A diminutive of the female given name Roberta


Rabbie

A Scottish form of Robbie, a short form of the male given name Robert.


Venda

The language of the people of this area.


Jovan

A transliteration of the Macedonian male given name Јован (Jovan), equivalent to John


Shannon

Captain Samuel Shannon is frequently mentioned in the public records, and he had something more than a local reputation. He must have been very popular, as the name "Shannon" as a Christian name is so common throughout the valley as to be noticeable.

1896, Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, C.M.Busch, state printer, page 283:

Everything in my life is okay except I have this terrible problem with my sister Shannon. I'm spelling her name the way most people would. She spells it Sionna ever since the priest told us that's the real Irish way to spell it. It's the name of a river and a goddess. Shanny doesn't think she's a river. She's really Shannon Marie.

2005, Andrew M. Greeley, Mary G. Durkin, The Book of Love, Macmillan, →ISBN, pages 193–194:

A unisex given name transferred from the surname or place name (from the river); first used in the USA in early 20th century, and only recently in Ireland.


Rita

From Romance (Italian rita, Spanish Rita). A shortening of Italian Margherita, and Spanish Margarita, cognates of English Margaret. An Italian Saint Rita was canonized in 1900. The English name came into regular use in early twentieth century.

Born Margarita Carmen Cansino to Eduardo and Volga Haworth Cansino on October 17, 1918, in New York City, Rita Hayworth was no stranger to show business.

1993, Diane Telgen, Jim Kamp, editors, Notable Hispanic American Women, VNR AG, →ISBN, page 194:

A female given name from the Romance languages, Italian, or Spanish.


Rita

From South Asian languages, from Sanskrit रीता (rītā).


Pericles

From Latin Periclēs, from Ancient Greek Περικλῆς (Periklês, “far-famed”), from περί (perí, “around”) + κλέος (kléos, “glory”).

der

A male given name from Ancient Greek of mostly historical use.


Clyde

The name of a river in Scotland, from the Gaelic name Cluaidh, of uncertain origin. Possibly influenced by clut (“the cleansing one”).

(chiefly US) A male given name transferred from the place name (the River Clyde in Scotland).


Bart

A diminutive of the male given name Bartholomew.


Bogdan

From Proto-Slavic *Bogъdanъ, a calque of Ancient Greek Θεόδωρος (Theódōros, “Theodore”, literally “gift of God”).

cog

A male given name from the Slavic languages.


Waquita

A female given name originating as a coinage, of African-American usage.


Iamblichus

Borrowed from Latin Iamblichus, from Koine Greek Ἰάμβλιχος (Iámblikhos), from Aramaic ימלכו (Yamlīḵū), perhaps originally a causative form of the verb מלך (mlk, “to rule”).

Iamblichus (c. 245 – c. 325), a Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher.


Norfuk

the language spoken on Norfolk Island; a blend of English and Tahitian


Hudson

en-proper noun

Hudson (countable and uncountable, plural Hudsons)

(countable) A male given name transferred from the surname.


Erik

A spelling variant of Eric, or directly borrowed from modern Swedish Erik.

A male given name from Old Norse, variant of Eric.


Titty

A diminutive of the female given name Letitia.


Neave

Neave (countable and uncountable, plural Neaves)

Two main origins:
* A variant of the English surname Neve.
* Variant of Nevay, a Scottish habitational surname.

Neave was born in Utica, New York, into a wealthy Anglo-American family.

2018 January 12, Mark Swenarton, “Neave Brown obituary”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media Limited, retrieved 2024-03-31:

Since this photo was taken, my daughter Neave has grown up.

2024 March 30, Anna Cafolla, “‘We have five in our bed – any more and I wouldn’t sleep!’: meet the extreme [British] dog owners”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media Limited, retrieved 2024-03-31:


Marissa

A female given name from Spanish, a contraction of Maria Lisa or Maria Luisa, though sometimes regarded as a re-interpretation of the name Melissa as a homophone in another European language.


Tina

Tina (countable and uncountable, plural Tinas)

Short form of Christina or of any female name ending in -tina, such as Martina or Albertina; frequently from Latin -ina

A female given name
A female given name from Ancient Greek.

A female given name
A female given name from Latin.


Polly

"Well, Johnny," she replied, rather hurt, "if you want to call me something else, you may do so; but I will not have any outlandish, ridiculous names. I don't like it much, but if you really wish it, you may call me Polly."
Polly, indeed! Mary was getting more and more prosaic.

1860, Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell, The Lighthouse, Saunders, Otley and co., page 161:

A female given name from Hebrew, nickname for Mary created by rhyming with Molly.


Ganesh

A male given name from Sanskrit used in India.


Jeremy

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 2:17:

He had the name of Jeremy given to him, because Jeremiah, as his father said, was a family name; and there was an advantage in curtailing a syllable, and in showing a preference towards the names of the New Testament over those of the old.

1840, John Bowring, Memoirs of Jeremy Bentham. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, p.169:

Fry: You don't meet many American Jeremies, do you? Have you ever met an American Jeremy?
Clarkson: No, it's too complicated. There's three syllables.

2004 October 22, QI, Season 2, Episode 4

A male given name from Hebrew, English form of Jeremiah. Also used to anglicize Irish Diarmaid (Dermot).


Montague

Montague (countable and uncountable, plural Montagues)


Meredith

Meredith (countable and uncountable, plural Merediths)

What was his name now? Literary sort of name - I've got it. Meredith. Meredith Blake. Don't know whether he's alive or not.

1942, Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs, HarperCollins, published 1994, →ISBN, page 26:

"What did I hear you say her name was?"
"Meredith. Mary and Edith. Names from both sides of the family."
"Meredith," he repeated softly. "I like it."

2004, Jo Goodman, Forever In My Heart, Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 412:

A female given name from Welsh; sometimes mistaken for a combination of Mary and Edith.

A number of places in the United States:

An unincorporated community in Pitkin County, Colorado.

An unincorporated community in Franklin Township, Clare County, Michigan.

A township in Wake County, North Carolina, mostly occupied by portions of Raleigh.


Percy

From the Norman baronial surname from a place in Normandy (Percy-en-Auge), Old French Perci, Late Latin Persiacum, from the Gallo-Roman personal name Persius.

I have written again to ask if I may visit there sometime soon, and talk to the administrator, who it turns out is an old acquaintance, a man called Percival Quinn, I think the only Percy I have heard of in the present era, let alone met.

2008, Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture, Faber and Faber, →ISBN, pages 198 - 199:

A male given name transferred from the surname, of Middle Ages and later usage.


cerealogy

There is no university with a department of cerealogy, and consequently anyone may call him- or herself a "cerealogist," even after one single visit to a crop circle.

2001, Eltjo Haselhoff, The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles: Scientific Research & Urban Legends, page xv:

Despite film showing the two men creating highly complex crop circles, the momentum behind cerealogy was too strong to be stopped by any admission of English eccentricity.

2002 August 12, “Cereal offenders who won't go away”, in Christian Science Monitor:

Patrick Moore, in Can You Speak Venusian, noted that — shades of cerealogy — the crops over a wide area had been flattened.

2005, Steve Dewey, John Ries, In Alien Heat: The Warminster Mystery Revisited, page 57:


Church of England

The English branch of the Christian Church; (since the 16th century) specifically the established Protestant church in England which is the mother church of the Anglican Communion.


anaphora

en-noun

anaphora (countable and uncountable, plural anaphoras or anaphors or anaphora)

anaphoras (plural)
anaphors (plural)
anaphora (plural)

From Ancient Greek ἀναφορά (anaphorá, “a carrying back”), from ἀνά (aná, “up”) + φέρω (phérō, “I carry”).

bor

Meronyms: epiclesis, preface, Sanctus, sursum corda

(Christianity) The most solemn part of the Divine Liturgy or the Mass during which the offerings of bread and wine are consecrated as body and blood of Christ.


Xerxes

From Ancient Greek Ξέρξης (Xérxēs), from Old Persian 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 (x-š-y-a-r-š-a /Xšayāršā/, “ruler among kings”). Doublet of Ahasuerus.

der

A male given name from Old Persian mainly applied to historical and fictional characters.


Plattdeutsch

/ˈplɑtˌdɔɪt͡ʃ/

/ˈplætˌdɔɪt͡ʃ/


Sid

A short form of the male given names Sidney and Siddhartha.

Alternative form of Syd (“unisex given name”).

A minor river in East Devon, England, which flows into the English Channel at Sidmouth.


delict

Borrowed from Latin delictum (“fault”), from neuter of delictus, past participle of delinquo (“to be lacking; to fail; to transgress”), from dē- + linquō (“to leave, quit, forsake, depart from”).

(civil law, Scots law) A wrongful act, analogous to a tort in common law.

civil law; Scots law; civil law; Scots law