Algorithm
A person became a process, then a word for rules machines follow.
From al-Khwarizmi, the Latinized name of a Persian mathematician whose work shaped algebra and computation vocabulary.Words have passports
Search a word. See where it came from.
Get a clean origin card: source language, weird human story, uncertainty, and one line worth sharing.
Popular word-origin searches
Start with the cards people look up because the modern word hides a stranger older meaning.
Old French
Mortgage
A cheerful modern word with a very medieval little shadow.
MoneyArabicAlgorithm
A person became a process, then a word for rules machines follow.
Science & MathLatinSalary
The word still carries the old link between pay, provisions, and survival.
MoneyCzechRobot
Before robots were gadgets, they were a labor anxiety.
TechnologyItalianQuarantine
A public-health rule became a permanent word for waiting apart.
HealthAmerican EnglishDeadline
The office word used to be a literal line.
WorkPopular origin cards
Short cards built for curiosity searches, classroom rabbit holes, and shareable word facts.
Arabic
Algorithm
A person became a process, then a word for rules machines follow.
Science & MathLatinSalary
The word still carries the old link between pay, provisions, and survival.
MoneyOld FrenchMortgage
A cheerful modern word with a very medieval little shadow.
MoneyCzechRobot
Before robots were gadgets, they were a labor anxiety.
TechnologyItalianQuarantine
A public-health rule became a permanent word for waiting apart.
HealthNahuatlAvocado
A common grocery word with a pre-Columbian root system.
FoodArabicCoffee
A word that traveled almost as well as the habit did.
FoodSanskritOrange
The fruit named the color in English, not the other way around.
FoodPersian / ArabicCheckmate
A board-game ending became a general word for being trapped.
GamesGreekPanic
A feeling named after a god who could make the landscape feel alive.
EmotionOld English / Greek mythClue
A clue is still a thread that gets you out of a maze.
MysteryItalian / GreekDisaster
The word remembers when catastrophe had astrology in it.
Risk
Popular checks
Open all priority checks
High-demand Word Origin Atlas pages.
Internal links are prioritized from observed search and analytics signals, then adjusted as new data comes in.