Where does “painkiller” come from?
Painkiller combines English pain, from Latin pānis meaning bread, with killer, from Dutch kil via Latin -āre and Latin ligō meaning to bind.
painkiller (English): A drug that numbs the pain in the body
Definitions
- A drug that numbs the pain in the body
Ancestry of “painkiller”, step by step
painkiller traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English pain
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | pain | An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of... |
| 2 | English | -ite | Used to form nouns denoting followers or... |
| 3 | French | -ité | Alternative form of -té, giving a quality or... |
| 4 | Latin | -īta | — |
| 5 | Ancient Greek | -ίτης | Suffix forming a masculine noun: one connected... |
| 6 | Ancient Greek | πολῑ́της | citizen |
| 7 | Ancient Greek | -της | Forms nouns representing a state of being; Added... |
| 8 | Proto-Hellenic | -tāts | — |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ts | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -tós | Creates verbal adjectives from verb stems |
via English killer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | killer | One who or that which kills; That which causes... |
| 2 | English | -er | A person or thing that does an action indicated... |
| 3 | Middle English | -er | agentive suffix; agent noun suffix |
| 4 | Old French | -er | Alternative form of -ier, verbal suffix;... |
| 5 | Latin | -āre | first conjugation |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -āō | Forms primarily denominative verbs |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -eh₂yéti | Creates iterative/ frequentative/ intensive... |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | yé- | — |
| 10 | Chichewa | iye | he, she |