Help

About

This application allows one to search for the etymologies of words in three ways:

  1. By directly searching for a single word
  2. By browsing alphabetically
  3. By searching for words borrowed/inherited/derived from or cognate with a selected language or languages.

How to Use

Single Word Lookup

Click on the "Single Word Lookup" button to show the entry screen. (This is the default screen when the app first loads.) Then enter a word and click "Go". If the word is found, the etymology will then be displayed. As you type the word, known matching words will be shown as a drop down list. Click on a word in the list to go directly to the appropriate entry.

To search for another word, click on the "Single Word Lookup" button again.

In the results, the word itself is a link to the full definition of the word on Wiktionary which opens in a new tab. And on the right hand side there is a link "Copy link" which will copy a direct link to the entry concerned to your device's clipboard.

Browse

Click on the "Browse" button which brings up the Thai alphabet. Then click on a letter to see the etymologies of words beginning with that letter.

One hundred words (maximum) are presented in a page. Click on the "Next" and "Previous" buttons (when shown) to see the next/previous page.

The "Next" and "Previous" buttons are repeated at the bottom of each page for convenience.

Language Lookup

Click on the "Language Lookup" button. Then select:

  1. Which sources you want included in the search, i.e. borrowed, inherited, derived and/or cognate
  2. Which language(s) you wish to search for.
Then click "Go".

As with "Browse", the results are presented in pages of 100.

Notes

This app loads a number of less common fonts for languages such as Lü and Ahom. If words in a particular language are missing, that will mean that an appropriate font isn't available on your device. The quickest fix for this would be to install a font for that language. A good source for fonts for less common languages is Noto. If you let me know which language font you have missing using the Feedback Form, I'll try to add it to the app. Note that for a few words a transcription is provided, but not the word in the original script. In these cases where the original script should be appears "?????". This is not a case of a font's being missing.

This application uses data from Wiktionary. The data are used under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Licence.

The Wiktionary data are a snapshot taken from the site in March 2023; they do not reflect any subsequent updates.