anger (n.) Look up anger at Dictionary.com
mid-13c., "distress, suffering; anguish, agony," also "hostile attitude, ill will, surliness," from Old Norse angr "distress, grief. sorrow, affliction," from the same root as anger (v.). Sense of "rage, wrath" is early 14c. Old Norse also had angr-gapi "rash, foolish person;" angr-lauss "free from care;" angr-lyndi "sadness, low spirits."
Angevin Look up Angevin at Dictionary.com
1650s, "pertaining to the French province of Anjou," from French Angevin, from Medieval Latin Andegavinus, from Andegavum "Angers," city in France, capital of Anjou (Latin Andegavia, from Andecavi, Roman name of the Gaulish people who lived here, which is of unknown origin). In English history, of the Plantagenet kings (beginning with Henry II) who were descended from Geoffrey, count of Anjou, and Matilda, daughter of Henry I.
angina (n.) Look up angina at Dictionary.com
1570s, from Latin angina "infection of the throat," from Greek ankhone "a strangling" (see anger); probably influenced in Latin by angere "to throttle." Angina pectoris is from 1744, from Latin pectoris, genitive of pectus "chest" (see pectoral (adj.)).
angio- Look up angio- at Dictionary.com
before verbs angi-, word-forming element now usually meaning "covered or enclosed by a seed or blood vessel," from Latinized form of Greek angeion "a vessel, receptacle," diminutive of angos "chest, box," which is of unknown origin.
angiogenesis (n.) Look up angiogenesis at Dictionary.com
1896, from angio- + -genesis "birth, origin, creation."
angiogram (n.) Look up angiogram at Dictionary.com
1933, from angio- + -gram.
angiography (n.) Look up angiography at Dictionary.com
1731, from angio- + -graphy.
angioma (n.) Look up angioma at Dictionary.com
1867, medical Latin, from angio- + -oma.
angioplasty (n.) Look up angioplasty at Dictionary.com
by 1976, from angio- + -plasty.
angiosperm (n.) Look up angiosperm at Dictionary.com
"plant with seeds contained in a protective vessel" (as distinguished from a gymnosperm), 1853, from Modern Latin Angiospermae, coined 1690 by German botanist Paul Hermann (1646-1695), from Greek angeion "vessel" (see angio-) + spermos, adjective from sperma "seed" (see sperm). So called because the seeds in this class of plants are enclosed.
angle (v.1) Look up angle at Dictionary.com
"to fish with a hook," mid-15c., from Old English angel (n.) "angle, hook, fishhook," related to anga "hook," from PIE *ang-/*ank- "to bend" (see angle (n.)). Compare Old English angul, Old Norse öngull, Old High German angul, German Angel "fishhook." Figurative sense is recorded from 1580s.
It is but a sory lyfe and an yuell to stand anglynge all day to catche a fewe fisshes. [John Palsgrave, 1530]
Related: Angled; angling.
angle (n.) Look up angle at Dictionary.com
"space between intersecting lines," late 14c., from Old French angle "angle, corner," and directly from Latin angulus "an angle, corner," a diminutive form from PIE root *ang-/*ank- "to bend" (source also of Greek ankylos "bent, crooked," Latin ang(u)ere "to compress in a bend, fold, strangle;" Old Church Slavonic aglu "corner;" Lithuanian anka "loop;" Sanskrit ankah "hook, bent," angam "limb;" Old English ancleo "ankle;" Old High German ango "hook"). Angle bracket is 1875 in carpentry; 1956 in typography.
Angle Look up Angle at Dictionary.com
member of a Teutonic tribe, Old English, from Latin Angli "the Angles," literally "people of Angul" (Old Norse Öngull), a region in what is now Holstein, said to be so-called for its hook-like shape (see angle (n.)). People from the tribe there founded the kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbia, and East Anglia in 5c. Britain. Their name, rather than that of the Saxons or Jutes, may have become the common one for the whole group of Germanic tribes because their dialect was the first committed to writing.
angle (v.2) Look up angle at Dictionary.com
"to move at an angle, to move diagonally or obliquely," 1741, from angle (n.). Related: Angled; angling.
angler (n.) Look up angler at Dictionary.com
"fisher with a hook and line," mid-15c. (c. 1300 as a surname); agent noun from angle (v.1).
Anglian Look up Anglian at Dictionary.com
"of the Angles," 1726; see Angle. The Old English word was Englisc, but as this came to be used in reference to the whole Germanic people of Britain, a new word was wanted to describe this one branch of them.
Anglican (adj.) Look up Anglican at Dictionary.com
1630s, "of the reformed Church of England" (opposed to Roman), from Medieval Latin Anglicanus, from Anglicus "of the English people, of England" (see anglicize). The noun meaning "adherent of the reformed Church of England" is first recorded 1797.
Anglicism (n.) Look up Anglicism at Dictionary.com
1640s, "anglicized language," from Latin Anglicus "of the English" (see Angle) + -ism. As an instance of this, from 1781.
anglicization (n.) Look up anglicization at Dictionary.com
1836, noun of action from anglicize; earlier in same sense was anglification (1822), from anglify (1751).
anglicize (v.) Look up anglicize at Dictionary.com
1710, with -ize + Medieval Latin Anglicus "of the English," from Angli "the Angles" (see Angle). Related: Anglicized; anglicizing.
Anglo (n.) Look up Anglo at Dictionary.com
"American, English-speaking white person," 1941, southwestern U.S., from Anglo-American. Anglo was used similarly of native, English-speakers in Canada from 1800 and Britain from 1964.
Anglo- Look up Anglo- at Dictionary.com
from Medieval Latin Anglo-, comb. form of Angli "the English" (see Angle).
Anglo-American Look up Anglo-American at Dictionary.com
1738, from Anglo- + American. Originally often in contrast to German immigrants. In contrast to non-English neighboring or border people in the U.S. from 1809 (adj.); 1834 (n.). Meaning "pertaining to both England and the United States" is from 1812.
Anglo-French (n.) Look up Anglo-French at Dictionary.com
the French written in England from the Norman Conquest (1066) through the Middle Ages; the administrative and legal language of England 12c.-17c.; the name is attested from 1887 and was popularized, if not coined, by Skeat.
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hir unknowe.
[Chaucer]
Anglo-Saxon Look up Anglo-Saxon at Dictionary.com
Old English Angli Saxones (plural), from Latin Anglo-Saxones, in which Anglo- is an adjective, thus literally "English Saxons," as opposed to those of the Continent (now called "Old Saxons"). Properly in reference to the Saxons of ancient Wessex, Essex, Middlesex, and Sussex.
I am a suthern man, I can not geste 'rum, ram, ruf' by letter. [Chaucer, "Parson's Prologue and Tale"]
After the Norman-French invasion of 1066, the peoples of the island were distinguished as English and French, but after a few generations all were English, and Latin-speaking scribes, who knew and cared little about Germanic history, began to use Anglo-Saxones to refer to the pre-1066 inhabitants and their descendants. When interest in Old English writing revived c. 1586, the word was extended to the language we now call Old English. It has been used rhetorically for "English" in an ethnological sense from 1832, and revisioned as Angle + Saxon.
Anglomania (n.) Look up Anglomania at Dictionary.com
1787; see Anglo- + mania. Related: Anglomaniac.
Anglophile (adj.) Look up Anglophile at Dictionary.com
1864, in reference to France, from Anglo- + -phile. Both Anglomania (1787) and Anglophobia (1793) are first attested in writings of Thomas Jefferson.
Anglophobia (n.) Look up Anglophobia at Dictionary.com
1793, from Anglo- + -phobia. Related: Anglophobe; Anglophobic.
Anglophone (adj.) Look up Anglophone at Dictionary.com
"English-speaking," 1895, from Anglo- + -phone.
angora (n.) Look up angora at Dictionary.com
type of wool, 1810, from Angora, city in central Turkey (ancient Ancyra, modern Ankara), which gave its name to the goat (1745 in English), and to its silk-like wool, and to a cat whose fur resembles it (1771 in English). The city name is from the Greek word for "anchor, bend" (see angle (n.)).
angrily (adv.) Look up angrily at Dictionary.com
mid-14c., "resentful, in anger; ill-temperedly," from angry + -ly (2).
angry (adj.) Look up angry at Dictionary.com
late 14c., from anger (n.) + -y (2). Originally "full of trouble, vexatious;" sense of "enraged, irate" also is from late 14c. The Old Norse adjective was ongrfullr "sorrowful," and Middle English had angerful "anxious, eager" (mid-13c.). The phrase angry young man dates to 1941 but was popularized in reference to the play "Look Back in Anger" (produced 1956) though it does not occur in that work.

"There are three words in the English language that end in -gry. Two of them are angry and hungry. What is the third?" There is no third (except some extremely obscure ones). Richard Lederer calls this "one of the most outrageous and time-wasting linguistic hoaxes in our nation's history" and traces it to a New York TV quiz show from early 1975.
angst (n.) Look up angst at Dictionary.com
1944, from German Angst "neurotic fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse," from Old High German angust, from the root of anger. George Eliot used it (in German) in 1849, and it was popularized in English by translation of Freud's work, but as a foreign word until 1940s. Old English had a cognate word, angsumnes "anxiety," but it died out.
angstrom (n.) Look up angstrom at Dictionary.com
unit of length equal to one hundred millionth of a centimeter (used to measure wavelengths of light), 1892, named for Swedish physicist Anders Ångström (1814-1874).
anguish (n.) Look up anguish at Dictionary.com
c. 1200, "acute bodily or mental suffering," from Old French anguisse, angoisse "choking sensation, distress, anxiety, rage," from Latin angustia (plural angustiae) "tightness, straitness, narrowness;" figuratively "distress, difficulty," from ang(u)ere "to throttle, torment" (see anger (v.)).
anguish (v.) Look up anguish at Dictionary.com
early 14c., intransitive and reflexive; mid-14c., transitive, from Old French anguissier (Modern French angoisser), from anguisse (see anguish (n.)). Related: Anguished; anguishing.
anguishous (adj.) Look up anguishous at Dictionary.com
early 13c., from Old French angoissos, from angoisse (see anguish (n.)). Related: Anguishously.
angular (adj.) Look up angular at Dictionary.com
1590s, from Latin angularis "having corners or angles," from angulus (see angle (n.)). Earlier in an astrological sense, "occupying a cardinal point of the zodiac" (late 14c.). Angulous "having many corners" is from mid-15c.
angularity (n.) Look up angularity at Dictionary.com
1640s; see angular + -ity.
Angus Look up Angus at Dictionary.com
masc. proper name, Scottish, related to Irish Aonghus, a compound that may be rendered in English as "one choice." Also the name of a county in Scotland, hence a breed of cattle (1842) associated with that region.
anhedonia (n.) Look up anhedonia at Dictionary.com
"inability to feel pleasure," 1897, from French anhédonie, coined 1896 by French psychologist Theodule Ribot (1839-1916) as an opposite to analgesia, from Greek an-, privative prefix (see an- (1)), + hedone "pleasure" (see hedonist) + abstract noun ending -ia.
anhinga (n.) Look up anhinga at Dictionary.com
American fishing bird (also called the snake-bird), 1769, from a Tupi word which sometimes is said to mean "snake-bird."
anhydrous (adj.) Look up anhydrous at Dictionary.com
"containing no water," 1809, a modern coinage from Greek an-, privative prefix (see an- (1)), + hydor "water" (see water (n.1)). Greek did have anhydros "waterless," used of arid lands or corpses that had not been given proper funeral rites.
ani (n.) Look up ani at Dictionary.com
black bird of the cuckoo family, 1829, from Spanish or Portuguese ani, from Tupi.
anigh (adv.) Look up anigh at Dictionary.com
"nearby," c. 1200, from a- (1) + nigh.
anil (n.) Look up anil at Dictionary.com
West Indian shrub, 1580s, from French or Portuguese anil (see aniline).
aniline (n.) Look up aniline at Dictionary.com
chemical base used in making colorful dyes, 1843, coined 1841 by German chemist Carl Julius Fritzsche (1808-1871) and adopted by Hofmann, ultimately from Portuguese anil "the indigo shrub," from Arabic an-nil "the indigo," assimilated from al-nil, from Persian nila, ultimately from Sanskrit nili "indigo," from nilah "dark blue." With suffix -ine indicating "derived substance" (see -ine (1); also see -ine (2) for the later, more precise, use of the suffix in chemistry).
anima (n.) Look up anima at Dictionary.com
Jung's term for the inner part of the personality, or the female component of a masculine personality, 1923, from fem. of Latin animus "the rational soul; life; the mental powers, intelligence" (see animus).
anima mundi Look up anima mundi at Dictionary.com
1670s, Medieval Latin, literally "soul of the world;" used by Abelard to render Greek psyche tou kosmou.
animadversion (n.) Look up animadversion at Dictionary.com
1590s, "criticism, blame," also sometimes in early use simply "notice, attention" (now obsolete), from Latin animadversionem (nominative animadversio) "investigation, inquiry; perception, observation," noun of action from past participle stem of animadverte "to take cognizance of," literally "to turn the mind to," from animum, accusative of animus "mind" (see animus), + advertere "to turn to" (see advertise). The sense of "to take notice of as a fault" was in Latin; in fact animadverto at times was a euphemism for "to punish with death."