Where does “flycatcher” come from?
Flycatcher is a compound of English fly and English catch, ultimately from Latin agō meaning "to do or act," through Latin -arius forming agent nouns, combining with Latin -āre verbal endings traced through Old French -er and Chinese 兒.
flycatcher (English): Any of many kinds of birds, of the families...
Definitions
- Any of many kinds of birds, of the families...
Ancestry of “flycatcher”, step by step
flycatcher traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English catcher
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | catcher | Someone or something that catches; The player... |
| 2 | English | catch | The act of seizing or capturing; The act of... |
| 3 | Middle English | cacchen | to catch |
| 4 | Anglo-Norman | cachier | to hide; Alternative form of chacier |
| 5 | Vulgar Latin | coacticare | present active infinitive of *coacticō |
| 6 | Latin | coactō | to compel, constrain, force |
| 7 | Latin | coactus | forced, compelled, having been forced; urged,... |
| 8 | Latin | cōgō | to collect, assemble, gather together |
| 9 | Latin | cōn- | Used in compounds to indicate a being or bringing together of several objects |
| 10 | Latin | cum | with, along with; at; -fold |
| 11 | Old Latin | com | Alternative form of cum |
| 12 | Proto-Italic | kom | with, along, at |
| 13 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱóm | beside, near, by, with |
| 14 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱe | Deictic particle, here; Post-positional... |
| 15 | Middle English | kyt | — |
| 16 | Russian | кит | whale; genitive plural of ки́та |
| 17 | Old Church Slavonic | китъ | whale |
| 18 | Ancient Greek | κῆτος | whale, sea monster; abyss |
via English fly
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | fly | Any insect of the order Diptera; characterized by... |
| 2 | Middle English | flien | To fly; to travel in the air; To move in the sky;... |
| 3 | Old English | flēogan | to fly |
| 4 | Old English | -ende | equivalent of English -ing; suffix for present... |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | *-andī | — |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | -andz | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -ónts | Derives nouns denoting body parts |
| 8 | Hungarian | önt | to pour; to cast; accusative singular of ön |
| 9 | Hungarian | ön | you |
| 10 | Hungarian | ön- | self- |
| 11 | Turkish | ön | front |
| 12 | Ottoman Turkish | اوك | voice (of human or animal); sound |
| 13 | Proto-Turkic | ǖn | sound, voice |