Where does “wrongdoer” come from?
Wrongdoer comes from Middle English wrong combined with the agent suffix -er, from Old French -er, ultimately derived from Latin -arius, an agent noun suffix formed from verbs in -āre.
wrongdoer (English): Someone who does wrong, whether morally,...
Definitions
- Someone who does wrong, whether morally,...
Ancestry of “wrongdoer”, step by step
wrongdoer traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English doer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | doer | Someone who does, performs, or executes; an... |
| 2 | Middle English | doer | doer, agent; offender; cause, reason |
| 3 | Middle English | -ere | er |
| 4 | Old English | -ere | masculine agent suffix, originally applied only... |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | -ārī | -er |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | -ārijaz | -er |
| 7 | Latin | -ārius | er |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | *-āzios | Forms relational adjectives to nouns (and rarely numerals) |
via English wrong
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | wrong | Incorrect or untrue; Asserting something... |
| 2 | Middle English | wrong | A wrong, injustice; A wrong, evil, wrongdoing,... |
| 3 | Old English | wrang | wrong, injustice; rough, uneven |
| 4 | Old Norse | rangr | unjust |
| 5 | Old Norse | wrangr | — |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | wrangaz | twisted, warped, bent, crooked, wry; wretched,... |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | werḱ- | — |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | wer- | to burn; to cover, heed, notice; squirrel |