Vocabulary
Your search for information on the origins of
vocabulary words and their meanings (etymology) can include books,
online databases, and authoritative Internet resources.
Books
These are a few of the
reference sources which focus on word and/or phrase origin; they can be
found in the Cerritos College Library:
|
The Oxford English dictionary
REF PE1625 .O87 1989 |
|
Sperling, Susan Kelz.
Poplollies and bellibones
: a celebration of lost words
PE1667 .S6 |
|
Hall, Rich.
More sniglets : (snig'lit),
any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.
PN6231.W64 H33 1985 |
|
Borror, Donald Joyce
Dictionary of word roots and combining forms compiled from the
Greek, Latin, and other languages
REF QH13 .B68 1960
|
|
Ayto, John.
Twentieth century words.
REF PE1630 .A98 1999 |
|
Cassell's Latin dictionary : Latin-English, English-Latin
REF PA2365.E5 C3 1968 |
|
The Oxford dictionary of new words.
REF PE1630 .O94 1997 |
|
Webster's word histories
REF PE1580 .W35 1989 |
|
Hendrickson, Robert
The Facts on File encyclopedia of word and phrase origins.
REF PE1689 .H47 1997 |
|
Carris, Joan Davenport.
Peterson's success with
words.
PE1449 .C34 1998 |
Internet Sites
In general, web sites on
word and phrase origins are good, but not comprehensive: most of them are
question services of a sort, and the answers are posted on the site. Some
of these archives can be quite large, and not necessarily organized by
anything more than date of posting; if you're looking for something
specific, use the find
function on your browser.
To look for the origin of a specific word or phrase on the web, use a
search engine such as Google
(http://www.google.com/), and try searching on the word or phrase
in question, plus "etymology" or "origin":
"it aint over til the fat lady sings" +"origin"
+serendipity +etymology.
Oxford English Dictionary
(Cerritos College subscription)
http://www.oed.com/
Merriam-Webster Online
http://www.m-w.com/home.htm
Cambridge Dictionaries
Online
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
American Heritage Dictionary
Online
http://www.bartleby.com/61/
The Word Detective
http://www.word-detective.com
Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable
The Word Detective
http://www.word-detective.com
Wilton's Word & Phrase
Origins
http://www.wordorigins.org/
JK 06/02
Web
Author:
Lorraine Gersitz
(lgersitz@cerritos.edu)
Disclaimer
.
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