English
palp
Palp comes from French palper ‘to palpate’, and goes back to Latin palpō ‘to touch softly, stroke, pat’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpalpōas palpāre‘to touch softly, stroke, pat’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentpalper‘to palpate’
- Englishearliest quotation 1922palp
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpalpōas palpāre‘to touch softly, stroke, pat’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentpalper‘to palpate’
- Englishearliest quotation 1922palp
Earliest quotation: 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses: “He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *pel- ‘to drive, swing, shake’
film, felt, simple, simply, push, filter, powder, complain, fold, pulse, pillow, flaw, repeal, pollen, compulsive, expel, repel, propel, pelt, peloton, palate, palatable, wallow, tuple, pollinate, muffle, apoplexy, peplum, pulver, pall, pillion, interpolate, palatal, 64 more
through Ancient Greek πάλλω ‘swing, shake, shake loose’
Today it means
noun Synonym of pedipalp.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin palpō / palp