Where does “effort” come from?
Effort comes from Middle French effort, derived from Old French esfort, the noun form of the verb esforcier, which combined Latin ex- with fortis meaning strong, literally to strengthen or force out.
effort (English): The work involved in performing an activity;...
Definitions
- The work involved in performing an activity;...
Ancestry of “effort”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle French | effort | strength; might; force; unit; division |
| 2 | Old French | esfort | strength; might |
| 3 | Old French | esforcier | to try; to make a large effort; to use force; to... |
| 4 | Vulgar Latin | exfortio | I strain, strive |
| 5 | Latin | ex | A name of the letter "X"; out of, from |
| 6 | Latin | commūnicō | to impart, share |
| 7 | Latin | commūnis | common, commonplace, ordinary, general, universal, shared, shared alike, of both sides, belonging to two or more together |
| 8 | Old Latin | com(m)oinis | — |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | kommoinis | common |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱom-moy-ni- | held in common |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱóm | beside, near, by, with |
| 12 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱe | Deictic particle, here; Post-positional... |
| 13 | Middle English | kyt | — |
| 14 | German | kitt | putty certain kinds of cement used for fixing e.g. window panes |
| 15 | Old High German | kuti | — |
| 16 | Proto-West Germanic | kwidu | gum, resin |
| 17 | Proto-Germanic | kweduz | resin |
| 18 | Proto-Indo-European | gʷet- | resin, gum; to say, speak |
| 19 | Proto-Indo-European | gū- | to bend; curve; arch; vault; to bow, bend, arch,... |