Where does “excavator” come from?
Excavator comes from English excavate, from Latin excavatus, the past participle of excavo, meaning to hollow out, formed from Latin ex- and the root ḱewh₁- in Proto-Indo-European.
excavator (English): A person who excavates; A curette used to scrape...
Definitions
- A person who excavates; A curette used to scrape...
Ancestry of “excavator”, step by step
excavator traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English excavate
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | excavate | To make a hole in (something); to hollow |
| 2 | Latin | excavātus | excavated |
| 3 | Latin | excavō | to hollow out, excavate |
| 4 | Latin | ex | A name of the letter "X"; out of, from |
| 5 | Latin | commūnicō | to impart, share |
| 6 | Latin | commūnis | common, commonplace, ordinary, general, universal, shared, shared alike, of both sides, belonging to two or more together |
| 7 | Old Latin | com(m)oinis | — |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | kommoinis | common |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱom-moy-ni- | held in common |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱóm | beside, near, by, with |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱe | Deictic particle, here; Post-positional... |
| 12 | Middle English | kyt | — |
| 13 | German | kitt | putty certain kinds of cement used for fixing e.g. window panes |
| 14 | Old High German | kuti | — |
| 15 | Proto-West Germanic | kwidu | gum, resin |
| 16 | Proto-Germanic | kweduz | resin |
| 17 | Proto-Indo-European | gʷet- | resin, gum; to say, speak |
via English ‐or
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | ‐or | Creates an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed |
| 2 | Middle English | -our | — |
| 3 | Old French | -eor | Alternative form of -or |
| 4 | Latin | -ator | -ator, -er; second-person singular future passive... |
| 5 | Latin | -tor | -er |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -tōr | Forms agent nouns to verb stems |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -tōr | Derives agent nouns from verbs, denoting someone... |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -tor-s | — |