Where does “knee-jerky” come from?
knee-jerky (English) comes from English Y, from English yuri, from Japanese 百合, from Japanese 連用形, from Japanese 見る, from Japanese 夢, from Old Japanese 夢, from Japanese 目.
knee-jerky (English): Exhibiting or characteristic of a rash or...
Definitions
- Exhibiting or characteristic of a rash or...
Ancestry of “knee-jerky”, step by step
knee-jerky traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English Y
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | Y | A figure or mark in the shape of the letter Y; A... |
| 2 | English | yuri | A narrative or visual work featuring a romance or... |
| 3 | Japanese | 百合 | lily |
| 4 | Japanese | 連用形 | an inflectional category: the continuative or... |
| 5 | Japanese | 見る | to see, to watch, to observe, to look at... |
| 6 | Japanese | 夢 | a dream; a vision; leaving reality to the state... |
| 7 | Old Japanese | 夢 | a dream |
| 8 | Japanese | 目 | an order in biology: smaller than a class, bigger... |
| 9 | Middle Chinese | 目 | — |
via English knee-jerk
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | knee-jerk | Unthinking, not carefully considered, automatic,... |
| 2 | English | knee | In humans, the joint or the region of the joint... |
| 3 | Middle English | knē | The knee or a similar joint in other animals |
| 4 | Old English | cnēo | generation |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | kneu | knee |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | knewą | knee |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | ǵnéwo- | knee |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | ǵónu | knee |