Where does “Canton” come from?
Canton derives from Portuguese Cantão, which comes from Chinese 廣東, the name of a southern Chinese region.
Canton (English): Guangzhou; Guangdong
Definitions
- Guangzhou; Guangdong
Ancestry of “Canton”, step by step
Canton traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Portuguese Cantão
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portuguese | Cantão | canton state-level subdivision of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| 2 | Portuguese | canto | singing; chant; a bird’s song |
| 3 | Old Portuguese | canto | — |
| 4 | Latin | cantus | sung, recited; sounded, blew; chanted |
| 5 | Latin | canere | present active infinitive of canō; second-person... |
| 6 | Latin | caneo | I am white, gray or hoary |
| 7 | Latin | -eo | Forms stative verbs from adjectives; dative... |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | -ēō | Forms stative verbs, indicating a state of being;... |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | -ējō | — |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -éh₁yeti | Thematicization of the athematic stative verbal... |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -yeti | Creates transitive imperfective verbs from roots |
via English canna
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | canna | Any member of the genus "Canna" of tropical... |
| 2 | Scots | cannae | cannot |
| 3 | Scots | can | can; be able to |
| 4 | Middle English | can | Alternative form of canne |
| 5 | Middle English | cunnen | To know about; To be able to; to have the... |
| 6 | Old English | cunnan | to know, to be familiar with; can, to know how |
| 7 | Proto-West Germanic | kunnan | to recognise; to know how, to be able |
| 8 | Proto-Germanic | kunnaną | to know, to be familiar with, to recognise; to... |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | ǵneh₃- | to know |