Origin and history of proration

also co-ordination, c. 1600, "orderly combination," from French coordination (14c.) or directly from Medieval Latin coordinationem (nominative coordinatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin coordinare "to set in order, arrange," from co- "with, together" (see com

late Old English scoru "twenty," from Old Norse skor "mark, notch, incision; a rift in rock," also, in Icelandic, "twenty," from Proto-Germanic *skur-, from PIE root *sker- (1) "to cut." The notion probably is of counting large numbers (of a passing flock of sheep, etc.) by makin

1580s, "warehouse, place for storing goods, especially military ammunition," from French magasin "warehouse, depot, store" (15c.), from Italian magazzino, from Arabic makhazin, plural of makhzan "storehouse" (source of Spanish almacén "warehouse, magazine"), from khazana "to stor

late 14c., jerarchie, ierarchie, "rank in the sacred order; one of the three divisions of the nine orders of angels;" loosely, "rule, dominion," from Old French ierarchie (14c., Modern French hiérarchie), from Medieval Latin hierarchia "ranked division of angels" (in the system o

mid-14c., "demon;" late 14c., "a ragged lout," also in surnames (Isabella Ragamuffyn, 1344), from Middle English raggi "ragged" ("rag-y"?) + "fanciful ending" [OED], or else perhaps second the element is Middle Dutch muffe "mitten." Or, as Johnson has it, "From rag and I know not

late 14c., "pertaining or belonging to oneself, not shared, peculiar to an individual only;" of a thing, "not open to the public, for the use of privileged persons;" of a religious rule, "not shared by Christians generally, distinctive;" from Latin privatus "set apart (from what

1507, "the western hemisphere, North and South America," in Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's treatise "Cosmographiae Introductio," from Modern Latin Americanus, traditionally after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who made two trips to the New World as a navigator and claimed to h

1851, "ancient wall inscriptions found in the ruins of Pompeii," from Italian graffiti, plural of graffito "a scribbling," a diminutive formation from graffio "a scratch or scribble," from graffiare "to scribble," ultimately from Greek graphein "to scratch, draw, write" (see -gra

late 14c., transitive and intransitive, "make avowal or admission of" (a fault, crime, sin, debt, etc.), from Old French confesser (transitive and intransitive), from Vulgar Latin *confessare, a frequentative form from Latin confess-, past participle stem of confiteri "to acknowl

1830, from French mythe (1818) and directly from Modern Latin mythus, from Greek mythos "speech, thought, word, discourse, conversation; story, saga, tale, myth, anything delivered by word of mouth," a word of unknown origin. Beekes finds it "quite possibly Pre-Greek." Myths are