Origin and history of Thoth

science and art (among other things), who was identified by Neoplatonists, mystics, and alchemists with the Egyptian god Thoth...

1759, "of or pertaining to Draco," the ancient Greek statesman; 1777, in reference to laws, "rigorous, extremely severe or harsh" (earlier Draconic, which is implied from 1640s). Draco is the Latinized form of Greek Drakon, name of the archon of Athens who laid down a code of law

Old English ofercuman "to reach, overtake, move or pass over," also "to conquer, prevail over, defeat in combat" (the Devil, evil spirits, sin, temptation, etc.), from ofer (see over) + cuman "to come" (see come (v.)). A common Germanic compound (Middle Dutch overkomen, Old High

early 14c., controve, contreve, "to invent, devise, plan;" late 14c., "to manage by a plan or scheme," from Old French controver (Modern French controuver) "to find out, contrive, imagine," from Late Latin contropare "to compare" (via a figure of speech), from an assimilated form

1670s, "rudiments or original elements of something," from Latin stamina "threads," plural of stamen (genitive staminis) "thread, warp" (see stamen). The sense of "power to resist or recover, strength, endurance" is attested by 1726 (originally plural), from the earlier meaning "

c. 1200, saven, "to deliver from some danger; rescue from peril, bring to safety," also "prevent the death of;" also "to deliver from sin or its consequences; admit to eternal life; gain salvation," from Old French sauver "keep (safe), protect, redeem," from Late Latin salvare "m

c. 1300, spoilen, "strip (someone) violently of clothes, strip a slain enemy," from Anglo-French espoiller, Old French espoillier, espillier "strip, plunder, pillage" and directly from Latin spoliare "strip, uncover, lay bare; strip of clothing, rob, plunder, pillage," a verb fro

early 15c., "a waterfall, floodgate, furious rush of water," from Latin cataracta "waterfall," from Greek katarhaktēs "waterfall, broken water; a kind of portcullis," noun use of an adjective compound meaning "swooping, down-rushing," from kata "down" (see cata-). The second elem

Old English win "wine," from Proto-Germanic *winam (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German win, Old Norse vin, Dutch wijn, German Wein), an early borrowing from Latin vinum "wine," from PIE *uoin-a-, related to words for "wine" in other southern European languages

"very large, unusually large for its type," 1882, a reference to Jumbo, name of the London Zoo's huge elephant (acquired from France, said to have been captured as a baby in Abyssinia in 1861), sold February 1882 to U.S. circus showman P.T. Barnum amid great excitement in America