LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH

The etymology gives the language from which words borrowed into English have come. It also gives the form or a transliteration of the word in that language if the form differs from that in English:

Main Entry: ¹mar.ble
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French marbre, from Latin marmor, from Greek marmaros

Main Entry: pome.gran.ate
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English poumgrenet, from Middle French pomme grenate, literally, seedy apple

Main Entry: souk
Function: noun
Etymology: Arabic suq market

In a few cases the expression "ultimately from" replaces the more usual "from." This expression indicates that one or more intermediate steps have been omitted in tracing the derivation of the form preceding the expression from the form following it:

Main Entry: tri.lo.bite
Function: noun
Etymology: ultimately from Greek trilobos three-lobed, from tri- + lobos lobe

Words cited from certain American Indian languages and from some other languages that are infrequently printed have been rendered with the phonetic symbols used by scholars of those languages. These symbols include the following: a raised dot to the right of a vowel letter to mark vowel length; a hook below a vowel letter to mark nasality; an apostrophe over a consonant letter to mark glottal release; a superscript w to the right of a consonant letter to mark labialization; the symbol to render \o\; the symbol to render a high central vowel; the Greek letters , , and to render voiced labial, dental, and velar fricatives; the symbol x to render \[k_]\; the symbol to render a glottal stop; and the symbol ("crossed lambda") for a voiceless lateral affricate. Examples of these symbols can be found at etymologies for the words Athabascan, babassu, coho, geoduck, muskellunge, obeah, potlatch, and sego lily.

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