Origin

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɒɹ.ɪ.d͡ʒɪn/

Definitions

1. The point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived from
2. The starting point from which something comes or evolves
3. A place, event, or idea from which something originates or is created

Etymology: The English word "origin" first appeared in Middle English in the early 1400s, and it arrived with a Latin core that still points to rising up. Its ancestor, Latin "orīgō", meant "beginning, source, birth," and it grew from the verb "orior", "to rise." The image is of something coming up out of the ground or out of a source, the same movement that lies behind the sun rising and the idea of a rising. The word has a near relative in English that took a different route. "Orient," the direction of the sunrise, also comes from the same Latin verb, so "origin" and "orient" are cousins that split apart as they entered the language. Both preserve the sense of something rising into view, though one now marks where things start and the other where the sun comes up. Before "origin" was borrowed, English already had its own word for beginning, Old English "frymþ", which the Latin loan gradually displaced.

Synonyms: source, beginning, root

Antonyms: end, consequence