Where does “letterhead” come from?
Letterhead derives from English letter and English head, with letter coming from Latin littera, ultimately connected through Latin formations involving -arius and -us suffixes, and head having roots traced through Chinese 兒 and Latin -are verb formations.
letterhead (English): A portion of text at the top of a letter,...
Definitions
- A portion of text at the top of a letter,...
Ancestry of “letterhead”, step by step
letterhead traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English letter
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | letter | A symbol in an alphabet; A written or printed... |
| 2 | Middle English | letter | — |
| 3 | Old French | letre | letter |
| 4 | Latin | littera | a letter of the alphabet; handwriting; letter,... |
| 5 | Latin | lītera | — |
| 6 | Old Latin | leitera | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | h₂leyH- | to smear |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | leyh₂- | to die, disapear; to avoid, elude, decline,... |
via English head
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | head | The part of the body of an animal or human which... |
| 2 | English | -y | Added to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives... |
| 3 | Middle English | -y | Designates an adjective, in many cases formed by... |
| 4 | Old English | -iġ | -y, -ic |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | -g | Forms adjectives from nouns and verbs with a... |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | -gaz | -y |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -ḱos | -y, -ic |