Etymonline

Word origins and English word etymologies

Origins and histories of English words from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

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Get word origin

Get the origin of an English word, with separate entries by part of speech, the first date mentioned, and linked related words. Dates may be absent for some entries.

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English word to look up, such as salary.

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Example results

Entries: Entries
Heading Entry Link Earliest Date Related Entries Origin Explanation
serendipity (n.)
etymonline.com
before 20c.
Sri Lanka
"faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries," a rare word before 20c., coined by Horace Walpole in a letter to Horace Mann that is dated Jan. 28, 1754, but which apparently was not published until 1833. Walpole said he formed the word from the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip" (an English version was published in 1722) whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of" [Walpole]. Serendip (also Serendib), attested by 1708 in English, is an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Sanskrit Simhaladvipa "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Attention was called to the word in an article in The Saturday Review of June 16, 1877 ["An ungrateful world has probably almost forgotten Horace Walpole's attempt to enrich the English language with the term "Serendipity." etc.]; it begins to turn up in publication 1890s but still is not in Century Dictionary in 1902.

Entries
Heading	Entry Link	Earliest Date	Related Entries	Origin Explanation
serendipity (n.)	etymonline.com	before 20c.	Sri Lanka	"faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries," a rare word before 20c., coined by Horace Walpole in a letter to Horace Mann that is dated Jan. 28, 1754, but which apparently was not published until 1833. Walpole said he formed the word from the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip" (an English version was published in 1722) whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of" [Walpole]. Serendip (also Serendib), attested by 1708 in English, is an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Sanskrit Simhaladvipa "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Attention was called to the word in an article in The Saturday Review of June 16, 1877 ["An ungrateful world has probably almost forgotten Horace Walpole's attempt to enrich the English language with the term "Serendipity." etc.]; it begins to turn up in publication 1890s but still is not in Century Dictionary in 1902.

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About Etymonline

Etymonline, also called Online Etymology Dictionary, provides word origin entries by part of speech; it needs an English word as input.

Built by Fous from etymonline.com and checked automatically; it last passed a check on Sep 29, 2026. Fous is not affiliated with Etymonline.

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Get word origin

1 credit per run

Get the origin of an English word, with separate entries by part of speech, the first date mentioned, and linked related words. Dates may be absent for some entries.

What you provide

Field	Type	Required	Description
Word`word`	Text	Required	English word to look up, such as salary.Example: Serendipity

What you get

Field	Type	Description
Entries`entries`	List	Origin entries for the requested word, one per listed part of speech.
Heading`entries[].heading`	Text	Entry heading as printed on the page.Example: serendipity (n.)
Entry Link`entries[].entry_link`	Text	Link to this entry on Etymonline.Example: https://www.etymonline.com/word/serendipity
Earliest Date`entries[].earliest_date`	Text	First date mentioned in the origin explanation, as printed.Example: before 20c.
Related Entries`entries[].related_entries`	List	Words cross-referenced from this origin explanation.
Origin Explanation`entries[].origin_explanation`	Text	Full origin explanation in plain text.Example: "to pay a regular salary to," late 15c. (Caxton), from salary (n.). Related…

Example result

For Word: Serendipity

JSON

{
  "entries": [
    {
      "heading": "serendipity (n.)",
      "entry_link": "https://www.etymonline.com/word/serendipity",
      "earliest_date": "before 20c.",
      "related_entries": [
        "Sri Lanka"
      ],
      "origin_explanation": "\"faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries,\" a rare word before 20c., coined by Horace Walpole in a letter to Horace Mann that is dated Jan. 28, 1754, but which apparently was not published u…"
    }
  ]
}

For developers

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cURL

# First set your key: export FOUS_API_KEY='YOUR_FOUS_API_KEY'
: "${FOUS_API_KEY:?Set FOUS_API_KEY before running this example}"

curl 'https://api.fous.com/v1/query' \
  --fail-with-body --silent --show-error --max-time 120 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FOUS_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
  "api": "@etymonline",
  "visibility": "public",
  "operation": "get_word_origin",
  "version": 1,
  "input": {
    "word": "serendipity"
  },
  "response": {
    "format": "json"
  }
}'

What you can do with it

Trace the origins of English words
Review the first date mentioned for a word
Explore related words cross-referenced in an origin entry

Questions

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