Etymograph

English

Anguilla

Anguilla comes from Latin anguilla ‘eel’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂engʷʰ-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₂engʷʰ-‘water-worm, eel’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEanguilla‘eel’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 2020Anguilla

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₂engʷʰ-‘water-worm, eel’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEanguilla‘eel’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 2020Anguilla

Earliest quotation: 2020, Dylan Taylor-Lehman, Icon Books: “In the late 1990s, the tiny Caribbean nation of…”

The story

Borrowed from Latin anguilla (‘eel’), from an uncertain Romance language original.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. The name of the island refers to its elongated shape.

Every English word from Proto-Indo-European *h₂engʷʰ-

Today it means

name An archipelago and overseas territory of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean Sea.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *h₂engʷʰ- / Anguilla

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