What word is called native

Etymologically
the vocabulary of the English language is far from being homogeneous.
It consists of two layers ─
the
native
stock of words
and the
borrowed
stock of words.

A native word is
a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the
earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. A
loan word,
borrowed
word or
bоrrowing
is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic
shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of
the English language.

Native words
comprise only 30% of the total number of words in the English
vocabulary but the native words form the bulk of the most frequent
words actually used in
speech and writing. The
native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency
words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions,
auxiliaries and, also, words denoting everyday objects and ideas (e.
g. house,
child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.).
Words belonging to the subsets of
the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by a wide
range of lexical and grammatical valency, high frequency value and a
developed polysemy; they are often monosyllabic, show great
word-building power and enter a number of
set expressions. Furthermore,
the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic having remained
unaffected by foreign influence.

The
native
words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into those of
the
Indo-European
stock and those of Common
Germanic origin
i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch,
Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian, Ukrainian or French.

The words having the
cognates
(words of
the same etymological root, of common origin) in
the vocabularies of different Indo-European
languages
form the oldest layer which readily falls into definite semantic
groups:

1. Family relations: father,
mother, brother, son, daughter (cf.
Ukr. мати,
брат, син.).

2. Parts of the human body:
foot (cf.
Rus. пядь),
nose
(cf.
Ukr.
ніс),
lip, heart.

3. Animals: cow,
swine, goose.

4. Plants: tree,
birch (cf.
Rus. береза),
corn
(cf. Rus.
зерно).

5. Time of day: day,
night.

6. Heavenly bodies: sun,
moon, star.

7. Numerous adjectives: red
(cf. Ukr.
рудий,
Rus.
рыжий),
new,
glad (cf.
Rus. гладкий),
sad
(cf.
Rus. сыт).

8. The numerals from one to a hundred.

9. Pronouns:
personal
(except they
which is a
Scandinavian borrowing); demonstrative.

10. Numerous verbs: be
(cf. Rus.
быть),
stand
(cf.
Rus. стоять),
sit
(cf. Rus.
сидеть),
eat
(cf. Rus.
есть),
know
(cf.
Rus. знать,
знаю).

Some of the most frequent
verbs are also of Indo-European common stock: bear,
come, sit, stand and
others. The adjectives of this group denote concrete physical
properties: hard,
quick, slow, red, white. Most
numerals also belong here.

The Germanic
element
represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages.
Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the
Indo-European element.

1. Parts of the human body:
head, hand,
arm, finger, bone.

2. Animals: bear,
fox, calf.

3. Plants:
oak, fir,
grass.

4. Natural phenomena: rain,
frost.

5. Seasons of the year:
winter,
spring, summer.

6. Landscape features: sea,
land.

7. Human dwellings and
furniture: house,
room, bench.

8. Sea-going vessels: boat,
ship.

9. Adjectives: green,
blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good.

10. Verbs: see,
hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

Many adverbs and pronouns also belong to this layer.

It is probably of some interest to mention that at various times
purists have tried to purge the English language of foreign words,
replacing them with Anglo-Saxon ones. One slogan created by these
linguistic nationalists was: “Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief,
terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables”. The irony is that the only
Anglo-Saxon word in the entire slogan is “Anglo-Saxon”.

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English natif, from Old French natif, from Latin nātīvus, from nātus (“birth”). Doublet of naive.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈneɪtɪv/
• (US)
  • (General American, weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈneɪtəv/
  • IPA^(key): /ˈneɪtɪv/ ^help
• Rhymes: -eɪtɪv
• Hyphenation: na‧tive

Adjective[edit]

native (comparative more native, superlative most native)

1. Belonging to one by birth.

   This is my native land.

   English is not my native language.

   I need a volunteer native New Yorker for my next joke…

2. Characteristic of or relating to people inhabiting a region from prehistoric times.

   What are now called ‘Native Americans’ used to be called Indians.

   The native peoples of Australia are called aborigines.

3. Alternative letter-case form of Native (of or relating to the native inhabitants of the Americas, or of Australia).
4. Born or grown in the region in which it lives or is found; not foreign or imported.

   a native inhabitant

   native oysters or strawberries

   Many native artists studied abroad.

5. (biology, of a species) Which occurs of its own accord in a given locality, to be contrasted with a species introduced by humans.

   The naturalized Norway maple often outcompetes the native North American sugar maple.

6. (computing, of software) Pertaining to the system or architecture in question.

   This is a native back-end to gather the latest news feeds.

   The native integer size is sixteen bits.

   cloud native, crypto native

7. (mineralogy) Occurring naturally in its pure or uncombined form.

   native aluminium, native salt

8. Arising by birth; having an origin; born.

   • 1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […] Richard Royston, […], →OCLC:

     Anaximander’s opinion is, that the gods are native, rising and vanishing again in long periods of times.

9. Original; constituting the original substance of anything.

   native dust

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Must I thus leave thee Paradise? thus leave Thee Native Soile, these happie Walks and Shades,
     Fit haunt of Gods?

10. Naturally related; cognate; connected (with).

    • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

      The head is not more native to the heart, […]
      Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.

Synonyms[edit]

• (belonging to one by birth): inborn, innate; See also Thesaurus:innate
• (born or grown in the region in which it is found): aboriginal, autochthonous, indigenous; See also Thesaurus:native

Antonyms[edit]

• (born or grown in the region in which it is found): foreign, fremd; See also Thesaurus:foreign

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Noun[edit]

native (plural natives)

1. A person who is native to a place; a person who was born in a place.
2. (in particular) A person of aboriginal descent, as distinguished from a person who was or whose ancestors were foreigners or settlers/colonizers. Alternative letter-case form of Native (aboriginal inhabitant of the Americas or Australia).

   • 1940 December, O. S. M. Raw, “The Rhodesia Railways—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 640:

     Mail trains are limited to first and second class passengers, but on the mixed trains third class is also provided, and this is patronised exclusively by natives.

   • 2009, Alex M. Cameron, Power without Law: The Supreme Court of Canada, the Marshall Decisions and the Failure of Judicial Activism, McGill-Queen’s Press — MQUP, →ISBN:

     Dr John Reid, a historian called to testify for Mr Marshall, distinguished between the fur trade at the truckhouses and a smaller scale trade between natives and settlers: «It seems that there were native persons who were selling small amounts […] «

   • 2013, James Ciment, Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It, Hill and Wang, →ISBN, page 72:

     As for the wars between natives and settlers, far from having “ceased,” they would continue well into the twentieth century, and over much the same things that had always sparked them—trade, land, and settler arrogance.

3. A native speaker.
4. Ostrea edulis, a kind of oyster.

Usage notes[edit]

• In North America, native/Native came into use as an umbrella term for the indigenous inhabitants of America as Indian began to fall out of formal usage (because it originated from Columbus’s mistaken belief that he was in India and the people he encountered were Indians). Other designations include Native American, Native Canadian, and American Indian. In Canada, the terms include Inuit and Metis and the adjectives First Nation/First Nations.

Synonyms[edit]

• homeling (uncommon, obsolete)

Derived terms[edit]

• the natives are restless

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• native cat
• nativity
• nativization

References[edit]

• native at OneLook Dictionary Search
• native in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• «native» in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 215.
• “native”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

French[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /na.tiv/
• Homophone: natives

Adjective[edit]

native

1. feminine singular of natif

Anagrams[edit]

• enviât, vanité, veinât, venait

Italian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /naˈti.ve/
• Rhymes: -ive
• Hyphenation: na‧tì‧ve

Adjective[edit]

native

1. feminine plural of nativo

Noun[edit]

native f pl

1. plural of nativa

Anagrams[edit]

• Aventi, aventi, avinte, evinta, nevati, vanite, venati, viante, vinate

Latin[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /naːˈtiː.u̯e/, [näːˈt̪iːu̯ɛ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /naˈti.ve/, [näˈt̪iːve]

Adjective[edit]

nātīve

1. vocative masculine singular of nātīvus

Romanian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): [naˈti.ve]

Adjective[edit]

native

1. feminine/neuter plural nominative/accusative of nativ

Lecture №1. The Object of Lexicology. Words of Native Origin and their Characteristic

Modern English Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the word-stock of Modern English. Words, their component parts – morphemes – and various types of word-groups, are subjected to structural and semantic analysis primarily from the synchronic angle. In other words, Modern English Lexicology investigates the problems of word-structure and word-formation in Modern English, the semantic structure of English words, the main principles underlying the classification of vocabulary units into various groupings the laws governing the replenishment of the vocabulary with new vocabulary units. It also studies the relations existing between various lexical layers of the English vocabulary and the specific laws and regulations that govern its development at the present time. The source and growth of the English vocabulary, the changes it has undergone in its history are also dwelt upon, as the diachronic approach revealing the vocabulary in the making cannot but contribute to the understanding of its workings at the present time.

LEXICOLOGY

The term «lexicology» is of Greek origin / from «lexis» – «word» and «logos» – «science»/. Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups. The term «vocabulary» is used to denote the system of words and word-groups that the language possesses. The term «word» denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a complete utterance. The term «word—group» denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function, e.g. the word-group «as loose as a goose» means «clumsy» and is used in a sentence as a predicative / He is as loose as a goose/. Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their sound form and meaning. In this case it is called historical lexicology. Another branch of lexicology is called descriptive and studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.

LANGUAGE UNITS

The main unit of the lexical system of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning is a word. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest language unit which can stand alone as a complete utterance. A word, however, can be divided into smaller sense units – morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. The morpheme consists of a class of variants, allomorphs, which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned, e.g. please, pleasant, pleasure.

Morphemes are divided into two large groups: lexical morphemes and grammatical (functional) morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound. Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the lexical meaning of the word, they coincide with the stem of simple words. Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and prepositions (the, with, and).

Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish) and also blocked (unique) root morphemes (e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry). Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), e.g. -s for the Plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for the Comparative degree of adjectives.

In the second half of the twentieth century the English word-building system was enriched by creating so called splinters which scientists include in the affixation stock of the Modern English word-building system. Splinters are the result of clipping the end or the beginning of a word and producing a number of new words on the analogy with the primary word-group. For example, there are many words formed with the help of the splinter mini- (apocope produced by clipping the word «miniature»), such as «minijet», «minicycle», «minicar», «miniradio» and many others. All of these words denote objects of smaller than normal dimensions.

On the analogy with «mini-» there appeared the splinter «maxi» — (apocope produced by clipping the word «maximum»), such words as «maxi-series», «maxi-sculpture», «maxi-taxi» and many others appeared in the language.

When European economic community was organized quite a number of neologisms with the splinter Euro— (apocope produced by clipping the word «European») were coined, such as: «Euratom» «Eurocard», «Euromarket», «Eurotunnel» and many others. These splinters are treated sometimes a prefixes in Modern English. There are also splinters which are formed by means of apheresis, that is clipping the beginning of a word. The origin of such splinters can be variable, e.g. the splinter «burger» appeared in English as the result of clipping the German borrowing «Hamburger» where the morphological structure was the stem «Hamburg» and the suffix -er. However in English the beginning of the word «Hamburger» was associated with the English word «ham», and the end of the word «burger» got the meaning «a bun cut into two parts». On the analogy with the word «hamburger» quite a number of new words were coined, such as: «baconburger», «beefburger», «cheeseburger», «fishburger» etc.

The splinter «cade» developed by clipping the beginning of the word «cavalcade» which is of Latin origin. In Latin the verb with the meaning «to ride a horse» is «cabalicare» and by means of the inflexion —ata the corresponding Participle is formed. So the element «cade» is a combination of the final letter of the stem and the inflexion. The splinter «cade» serves to form nouns with the meaning «connected with the procession of vehicles denoted by the first component», e.g. «aircade» – «a group of airplanes accompanying the plane of a VIP», «autocade» – «a group of automobiles escorting the automobile of a VIP», «musicade» – «an orchestra participating in a procession».

In the seventieths of the twentieth century there was a political scandal in the hotel «Watergate» where the Democratic Party of the USA had its pre-election headquarters. Republicans managed to install bugs there and when they were discovered there was a scandal and the ruling American government had to resign. The name «Watergate» acquired the meaning «a political scandal», «corruption». On the analogy with this word quite a number of other words were formed by using the splinter «gate» (apheresis of the word «Watergate»), such as: «Irangate», «Westlandgate», «shuttlegate», «milliongate» etc. The splinter «gate» is added mainly to Proper names: names of people with whom the scandal is connected or a geographical name denoting the place where the scandal occurred.

The splinter «mobile» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «automobile» and is used to denote special types of automobiles, such as: «artmobile», «bookmobile», «snowmobile» etc.

The splinter «napper» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «kidnapper» and is used to denote different types of crimesters, such as: «busnapper», «babynapper», «dognapper» etc. From such nouns the corresponding verbs are formed by means of backformation, e.g. «to busnap», «to babynap», «to dognap».

The splinter «omat» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «automat» (a cafe in which meals are provided in slot-machines). The meaning «self-service» is used in such words as «laundromat», «cashomat» etc.

Another splinter «eteria» with the meaning «self-service» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «cafeteria». By means of the splinter «eteria» the following words were formed: «groceteria», «booketeria», «booteteria» and many others.

The splinter «quake» is used to form new words with the meaning of «shaking», «agitation». This splinter was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «earthquake». The following words were formed with the help of this splinter: «Marsquake», «Moonquake», «youthquake» etc.

The splinter «rama(ama)» is a clipping of the word «panorama» of Greek origin where «pan» means «all» and «horama» means «view». In Modern English the meaning «view» was lost and the splinter «rama» is used in advertisements to denote objects of supreme quality, e.g. «autorama» means «exhibition-sale of expensive cars», «trouserama» means «sale of trousers of supreme quality» etc.

The splinter «scape» is a clipping of the word «landscape» and it is used to form words denoting different types of landscapes, such as: «moonscape», «streetscape», «townscape», «seascape» etc.

Another case of splinters is «tel» which is the result of clipping the beginning of the word «hotel». It serves to form words denoting different types of hotels, such as: «motel» (motor-car hotel), «boatel» (boat hotel), «floatel» (a hotel on water, floating), «airtel» (airport hotel) etc.

The splinter «theque» is the result of clipping the beginning of the word «apotheque» of Greek origin which means in Greek «a store house». In Russian words: «библиотека», «картотека», «фильмотека» the element «тека» corresponding to the English «theque» preserves the meaning of storing something which is expressed by the first component of the word. In English the splinter «theque» is used to denote a place for dancing, such as: «discotheque», «jazzotheque».

The splinter «thon» is the result of clipping the beginning of the word «marathon». «Marathon» primarily was the name of a battle-field in Greece, forty miles from Athens, where there was a battle between the Greek and the Persian. When the Greek won a victory a Greek runner was sent to Athens to tell people about the victory. Later on the word «Marathon» was used to denote long-distance competitions in running. The splinter «thon(athon)» denotes «something continuing for a long time», «competition in endurance» e.g. «dancathon», «telethon», «speakathon», «readathon», «walkathon», «moviethon», «swimathon», «talkathon» etc.

Splinters can be the result of clipping adjectives or substantivized adjectives. The splinter «aholic» (holic) was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «alcoholic» of Arabian origin where «al» denoted «the», «koh’l» – «powder for staining lids». The splinter «(a)holic» means «infatuated by the object expressed by the stem of the word», e.g. «bookaholic», «computerholic», «coffeeholic», «cheesaholic», «workaholic» and many others.

The splinter «genic» formed by clipping the beginning of the word «photogenic» denotes the notion «suitable for something denoted by the stem», e.g. «allergenic», «cardiogenic», «mediagenic», «telegenic» etc.

As far as verbs are concerned it is not typical of them to be clipped that is why there is only one splinter to be used for forming new verbs in this way. It is the splinter «cast» formed by clipping the beginning of the verb «broadcast». This splinter was used to form the verbs «telecast» and «abroadcast».

Splinters can be called pseudomorphemes because they are neither roots nor affixes, they are more or less artificial. In English there are words which consist of two splinters, e.g. «telethon», therefore it is more logical to call words with splinters in their structure «compound-shortened words consisting of two clippings of words».

Splinters have only one function in English: they serve to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech, whereas prefixes and suffixes can also change the part-of-speech meaning, e.g. the prefix «en-» and its allomorph «em» can form verbs from noun and adjective stems («embody», «enable», «endanger»), «be-» can form verbs from noun and adjective stems («becloud», «benumb»), «post-» and «pre-» can form adjectives from noun stems («pre-election campaign», «post-war events»). The main function of suffixes is to form one part of speech from another part of speech, e.g. «-er», «-ing», «-ment» form nouns from verbal stems («teacher», «dancing», «movement»), «-ness», «-ity» are used to form nouns from adjective stems («clannishness», «marginality»).

According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituting a word there are different structural types of words in English: simple, derived, compound, compound-derived. Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the inflexion is zero), e.g. «seldom», «chairs», «longer», «asked». Derived words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, e.g. «derestricted», «unemployed». Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e.g. «baby-moons», «wait-and-see (policy)». Compound—derived words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e.g. «middle-of-the-roaders», «job-hopper».

When speaking about the structure of words stems also should be mentioned. The stem is the part of the word which remains unchanged throughout the paradigm of the word, e.g. the stem «hop» can be found in the words: «hop», «hops», «hopped», «hopping». The stem «hippie» can be found in the words: «hippie», «hippies», «hippie’s», «hippies’». The stem «job-hop» can be found in the words: «job-hop», «job-hops», «job-hopped», «job-hopping».

So stems, the same as words, can be simple, derived, compound and compound-derived. Stems have not only the lexical meaning but also grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, they can be noun stems («girl» in the adjective «girlish»), adjective stems («girlish» in the noun «girlishness»), verb stems («expel» in the noun «expellee») etc. They differ from words by the absence of inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words. Sometimes it is rather difficult to distinguish between simple and derived words, especially in the cases of phonetic borrowings from other languages and of native words with blocked (unique) root morphemes, e.g. «perestroika», «cranberry», «absence» etc. As far as words with splinters are concerned it is difficult to distinguish between derived words and compound-shortened words. If a splinter is treated as an affix (or a semi-affix) the word can be called derived, e.g. — «telescreen», «maxi-taxi», «cheeseburger». But if the splinter is treated as a lexical shortening of one of the stems, the word can be called compound-shortened word formed from a word combination where one of the components was shortened, e.g. «busnapper» was formed from «bus kidnapper», «minijet» from «miniature jet».

In the English language of the second half of the twentieth century there developed so called block compounds, that is compound words which have a uniting stress but a split spelling, such as «chat show», «penguin suit» etc. Such compound words can be easily mixed up with word-groups of the type «stone wall», so called nominative binomials. Such linguistic units serve to denote a notion which is more specific than the notion expressed by the second component and consists of two nouns, the first of which is an attribute to the second one. If we compare a nominative binomial with a compound noun with the structure N+N we shall see that a nominative binomial has no unity of stress. The change of the order of its components will change its lexical meaning, e.g. «vid kid» is «a kid who is a video fan» while «kid vid» means «a video-film for kids» or else «lamp oil» means «oil for lamps» and «oil lamp» means «a lamp which uses oil for burning». Among language units we can also point out word combinations of different structural types of idiomatic and non-idiomatic character, such as «the first fiddle», «old salt» and «round table», «high road». There are also sentences which are studied by grammarians.

Thus, we can draw the conclusion that in Modern English the following language units can be mentioned: morphemes, splinters, words, nominative binomials, non-idiomatic and idiomatic word-combinations, sentences.

WORDS OF NATIVE ORIGIN AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS

Etymologically the vocabulary of the English language is far from being homogeneous. It consists of two layers – the native stock of words and the borrowed stock of words. Native words comprise only 30% of the total number of words in the English vocabulary but the native words form the bulk of the most frequent words actually used in speech and writing. The native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and, also, words denoting everyday objects and ideas (e. g. house, child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.). Words belonging to the subsets of the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency, high frequency value and a developed polysemy; they are often monosyllabic, show great word-building power and enter a number of set expressions. Furthermore, the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic having remained unaffected by foreign influence.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. A loan word, borrowed word or borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language.

The native words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into those of the Indo-European stock and those of Common Germanic origin i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian, Ukrainian or French. The words having the cognates (words of the same etymological root, of common origin) in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer which readily falls into definite semantic groups: Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter (cf. Ukr. мати, брат, син.). Parts of the human body: foot (cf. Rus. пядь), nose (cf. Ukr. ніс), lip, heart. Animals: cow, swine, goose. Plants: tree, birch (cf. Rus. береза), corn (cf. Rus. зерно). Time of day: day, night. Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star. Numerous adjectives: red (cf. Ukr. рудий, Rus. рыжий), new, glad (cf. Rus. гладкий), sad (cf. Rus. сыт). The numerals from one to a hundred.

Pronouns: personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing); demonstrative. Numerous verbs: be (cf. Rus. быть), stand (cf. Rus. стоять), sit (cf. Rus. сидеть), eat (cf. Rus. есть), know (cf. Rus. знать, знаю). Some of the most frequent verbs are also of Indo-European common stock: bear, come; sit, stand and others. The adjectives of this group denote concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow, red, white. Most numerals also belong here.

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element. Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone. Animals: bear, fox, calf. Plants: oak, fir, grass. Natural phenomena: rain, frost. Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer. Landscape features: sea, land. Human dwellings and furniture: house, room, bench. Sea-going vessels: boat, ship. Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good. Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

Many adverbs and pronouns also belong to this layer. It is probably of some interest to mention that at various times purists have tried to purge the English language of foreign words, replacing them with Anglo-Saxon ones. One slogan created by these linguistic nationalists was: “Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables”. The irony is that the only Anglo-Saxon word in the entire slogan is “Anglo-Saxon”.

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For those interested in a little info about this site: it’s a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for — just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn’t be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary — which is now in the public domain. However, after a day’s work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary — which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it’s not properly structured for parsing. That’s when I stumbled across the UBY project — an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I’m happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).