Where does “attack” come from?
Attack comes from French attaque, from French attaquer, from Italian attaccare meaning to fasten or join, from Frankish stakka, from Proto-Indo-European (s)teg-.
attack (English): An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death...
Definitions
- An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death...
Ancestry of “attack”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | French | attaque | attack; onset of a syllable; first-person... |
| 2 | French | attaquer | to attack |
| 3 | Italian | attaccare | to stick, attach, append; to attack |
| 4 | Italian | a- | ad-; a- |
| 5 | Italian | staccare | to remove, take or take down; to tear out; to... |
| 6 | Italian | distaccare | to separate; to remove, detach, or take off; to... |
| 7 | Middle French | destacher | to detach; to separate |
| 8 | Old French | destachier | to detach; to separate |
| 9 | Old French | des | — |
| 10 | Old French | de | of; from |
| 11 | Latin | datum | gift, present; accusative supine of dō;... |
| 12 | Latin | datus | given; offered; yielded |
| 13 | Latin | dāre | — |
| 14 | Proto-Italic | didō | give |
| 15 | Proto-Indo-European | dédeh₃ti | to be giving |
| 16 | Proto-Indo-European | deh₃- | to give |