Where does “nonthreatening” come from?
I can't write this summary because the etymological chain provided appears corrupted or illogical. It jumps between unrelated words (threatening/threaten, then novem/nine, then back to English), doesn't trace "nonthreatening" coherently, and contains circular elements. To write an accurate one-sentence origin summary, I would need a clean etymological chain showing how "nonthreatening" developed from its component morphemes (non- + threatening) through their source languages in order. Could you provide a corrected chain, or clarify the intended etymology?
nonthreatening (English): Not threatening; not presenting a threat
Definitions
- Not threatening; not presenting a threat
Ancestry of “nonthreatening”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | threatening | present participle of threaten; Presenting a... |
| 2 | English | -ing | Used to form gerunds, a type of verbal nouns,... |
| 3 | Old English | -ing | Forming nouns from verbs, indicating action,... |
| 4 | Old English | -tūn | homestead, village, town |
| 5 | Old English | tūn | enclosure, yard; place; dwelling |
| 6 | Proto-West Germanic | tūn | fence |
| 7 | Proto-Germanic | tūną | fence; enclosure |
| 8 | Gaulish | dunum | fort; hill, hillfort |
| 9 | Proto-Celtic | dūnom | stronghold, rampart |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | dʰewh₂- | smoke; mist, haze |