Transforms any text by replacing words with their etymological origins, revealing the hidden history and root meanings behind everyday language.
Every word you use carries centuries of history. The Etymology Translator takes your modern text and rewrites it by tracing each significant word back to its roots — Latin, Greek, Old English, Old French, Proto-Germanic, and beyond. Instead of simply reading a sentence, you get to see the ancient DNA of your language laid bare.
The word "etymology" itself comes from the Greek "etymon" (true sense) and "logia" (study of). It's the study of where words come from, how they evolved, and what they originally meant. This translator puts that knowledge to work by rewriting your text through the lens of word origins.
Enter any English text and the translator will identify key words, trace their etymological roots, and rewrite your sentence using those origin forms or explanations. You can control how deep the translation goes — from light annotations to a full reconstruction using ancient root words. It's a powerful way to learn linguistics, enrich your writing, or simply satisfy your curiosity about language.
The school was closed because of a disaster.
The skholē (Gk: "leisure") was clausum (L: "shut, blocked") because of a dis-astrum (L/Gk: "ill-starred event").
She walked through the garden and picked a beautiful flower.
She wealcan (OE: "to roll, toss") through the gardin (OF: "enclosure") and picked (ME: from picken, "to peck") a beau-tiful (OF: bealté, "physical attractiveness") flour (OF: flur, from L: flōrem, "a blossom").
The president announced a new salary for the company workers.
The praesidēns (L: "one who sits before, presides") annuntiāre (L: "to bring news") a nēowe (OE: "novel, not existing before") salārium (L: "salt money, soldier's allowance for salt") for the compānia (L: "bread-sharing group, companions") weorcere (OE: "those who do work").
I feel happy today.
I fēlan (OE: "to touch, perceive") happ (ON: "luck, chance") to-dæg (OE: "on this day").
The word etymology comes from the Greek 'etymon' meaning 'true sense of a word' and 'logia' meaning 'study of.' So etymology literally means 'the study of the true meaning of words.' It traces how words were born, borrowed, and transformed across languages and centuries.
It's a beautifully self-referential word. 'Etymology' entered English from Old French 'ethimologie,' which came from Latin 'etymologia,' borrowed directly from Greek 'etymología' — a compound of 'étymon' (true meaning) and 'lógos' (word, reason). The Greek root 'étymon' itself comes from 'étymos,' meaning 'true' or 'real.'
English is a remarkably hybrid language. Roughly 29% of English words come from Latin, 29% from French (mostly Old French after the Norman Conquest), 26% from Germanic languages (Old English and Old Norse), and about 6% from Greek. The remaining percentage comes from dozens of other languages including Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, and indigenous American languages.
It controls how far back in time the translator traces each word. At level 1, you might see a word traced to Old French or Middle English — its most recent ancestor. At level 5, the translator digs all the way back to Proto-Indo-European reconstructed roots (marked with an asterisk, like *wódr̥ for 'water'), which are the deepest linguistic layer scholars have reconstructed, dating back roughly 4,500-6,500 years.
Words often undergo dramatic meaning shifts over centuries. 'Nice' originally meant 'foolish' in Latin (nescius, 'ignorant'). 'Salary' comes from Latin 'salarium,' meaning 'salt money' — Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt. 'Disaster' literally means 'bad star' from Italian/Greek, reflecting the old belief that misfortune was caused by unfavorable planetary alignments. These hidden stories are exactly what the Etymology Translator reveals.
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