Etymonline English Dictionary

I am almost 50 and I remember as a kid quite often hearing, “ Look it up yourself in the dictionary and you will never forget it !”. Now enter the “Google Smart Age”, as I like to call it. I work with a lot of 20 somethings .... ask them anything... most of them literally have to “ google it”, to give you most answers. I asked this college kid at work the other day , the definition of “Hypocrite”.....he googled it came back with a simple definition. Then I showed him this site and we dug into that word and the roots of it , usage in language etc.... a few hours later this kid actually responded “ Wow... this site is Amazing... I feel as if I have the knowledge of this one word as good as my PHD English Teacher ... when I recently had a discussion with her about the word in class”..... what happened in our society over the last 40+ years not teaching kids how to Think !!!!... just an AWESOME SITE !!!

I’ve loved and used the website for years and was super excited to see you made an app for it! I fired it up, looked something up, and saw the app looks really nice and works great, nice job. I saw the bottom banner ad and the option to remove, so I went to immediately pay to remove them as I really would like to support Doug & crew, but then I saw there was only subscriptions available and then the price... $5/month or $18/year? I’d happily send over $10 as a one time fee for an ad free app but I’m not going to pay those huge subscription fees. Therefore instead of getting 5 or 10 or $20 from me you’re getting $0. That makes me feel bad and gives you no money. Please consider making an ad free paid version of the app. 5 stars regardless because the content and work behind it more than deserves it.

A thousand thanks to Doug for creating this site, doing all the research and providing it free —I happily support your work through donations and Patreon. Your work may have started as a hobby but it’s become a necessity in classrooms and in homes across the world. My students and I are grateful many times a day when we wonder about a relationship words may have and can instantly begin our quest with reliable information through Etymonline.

One fix needed: the background color on my index page is white, and so is the text. I cannot read the text on this page OR on the page with my bookmarks. Can this be fixed?! I love Doug’s work- it has benefited me tremendously. The origins and meanings of words are the threads the allow us to understand the weave and weft of the cultural fabric that surrounds is individually and collectively. Thank you for this app!

This is a great app; very reliable when you do not want to go online, but one small problem that is a bit annoying. The “Related Words” section does not show all of the related words, I thought that I would be able to scroll through them to show the rest but I cannot. Nice and dependable app, this just a small bug that needs fixing. -Frequent User.