Example sentences for: etymological

How can you use “etymological” in a sentence? Here are some example sentences to help you improve your vocabulary:

  • Intrigued by Milton Horowitz's A Discouraging Word [OBITER DICTA, XXII, 1, 13], I set about tracking the word balagan along its etymological course back from the modern Hebrew into which, according to Milton Horowitz quoting Herman Wouk, the word was borrowed from Russian.

  • Dwelly set out to compile the Gaelic from all earlier dictionaries and was very successful in an encyclopedic effort; but the work would have been more useful had it an English-to-Gaelic section and provided some etymological clues as to meaning.

  • But in reviewing the works of others, attention must be paid to such materials, and the Bibliography of Selected Sources and Dictionaries Consulted include only twenty-five titles under the former category (plus fifteen of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey novels) and only ten under the latter, some of which are curious choices indeed: Robert Hunter's Universal Dictionary of the English Language, New York: Collier, 1897, which I have never heard of; Eric Partridge's Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English contains a great many errors and ought to be avoided by serious researchers; the author evidently chose not to wade through Johnson's Dictionary, relying instead on McAdam and Milne's A Modern Selection.

  • Look for an etymological rundown of the phrase in a future William Safire language column.

  • It included almost all of the important uses of the word, and the introduction gave a good picture of the word's history, both etymological and social.


How many words do you know? Try our free vocabulary size test!


Search

Search for example sentences

Loading Loading...
Quantcast