This site collects links to online etymological sources and historical dictionaries for all languages. That can be online databases, PDFs or in whatever format. If you know of a source that is missing here, feel free to contact me via m.zielenbach [at] vu.nl or on one of my social medias. I do my best to keep the links updated. I am not responsible for the content of the linked pages or the quality of the sources. Check out my blog post on how to use etymological resources.
This first started as a thread on twitter and I thank everyone who contributed sources. Sometimes people added a little description of the source, which I include here.
Now you may ask, “Wait, isn’t there a wikipedia page that does just this?” There absolutely is and you should check it out. The thing is I am not sure whether wikipedia is the right place for such a place and if the editors one day should decide that it is not, we will lose the list.
Navigation (click to open)
For multiple languages
- https://wiktionary.org (Very handy and easy to use but always check with other sources. Sometimes, wiktionaries in other languages contain more and better data for that and related languages.)
- https://cooljugator.com/etymology#google_vignette
- https://dmnes.org/ (“For European personal names before 1600”)
- https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/main.cgi (“Sergei and George Starostin’s databases for most attested macrofamilies. Some parts of it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s mostly reliable at least as far as basic data goes”)
- https://starlingdb.org/babel.php?lan=en
- http://lwp.ids-mannheim.de/ (Lehnwortportal Deutsch – Entlehnungen aus dem Deutschen in andere Sprachen)
- https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Wörterbücher (“A list of older dictionaries available online, including etymological ones”)
- https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Проект:Лингвистика/Списки/Этимологические_словари (“Etymological dictionaries, but not all available online”)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_dictionary (none exhaustive list of etymological dictionaries, not all of them online)
- https://wold.clld.org/ (vocabularies for several languages, includes information on loan words but not etymologies)
Indo-European
Germanic
English
- https://www.oed.com/?tl=true (Oxford English Dictionary)
- https://www.etymonline.com/
- https://www.ahdictionary.com/ (“The American heritage dictionary of the English language (has nicely-described etymologies)”)
- https://archive.org/details/etymologicaldict00weekuoft/page/n8/mode/1up (“E. Weekley, An etymological dictionary of Modern English (almost forgotten, but quite useful)”)
German
- https://www.dwds.de/wb/etymwb/search (based on Pfeifer’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen (1993))
- https://ewa.saw-leipzig.de/de (Old High German)
Yiddish
- https://knihi.com/none/Idys-bielaruski_slounik.html#8 (“gives etymological information for almost every entry, but does not distinguish between words inherited and borrowed from German”)
- https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/pageview/4105548 (“J. Gerzon, Die jüdisch-deutsche Sprache (on pp 83‒129: “diejenigen jüd.-deutschen wörter, die auf deutschem boden nicht mehr vorkommen, sodann solche, die von der nhd. schriftsprachlichen entsprechung wesentlich abweichen”)”)
- https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/search?query=Groyser+verterbukh&restrict=titles (“Groyser verterbukh fun der Yidisher shprakh (גרױסער װערטערבּוך פֿון דער ייִדישער שפּראַך), but only covering the letter א (no more appeared)”)
- https://polonjid-dictionary.clarin-pl.eu/ (“The Online Dictionary of Polish Borrowings in Yiddish”)
Dutch
- https://etymologie.nl/ (based on Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands)
- https://etymologiebank.nl/ (covers several etymological dictionaries)
Icelandic
Danish
Swedish
Gothic
- https://www.academia.edu/56815812/GRUNDRISS_DER_GOTISCHEN_ETYMOLOGIE
- https://www.academia.edu/12787999/Gothic_Etymological_Dictionary
Romance
- http://stella.atilf.fr/DERom/ (“Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman”)
Latin
- https://archive.org/details/walde/page/n1/mode/1up (“A. Walde, Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (third edition by J. B. Hofmann)”)
Spanish
- https://etimologias.dechile.net/ (“tends to come up whenever I search. It seems pretty reliable when I’ve compared with other sources and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t shy away from debates and uncertainty”)
Catalan
French
- https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/
- http://atilf.atilf.fr/ (Middle French)
Italian
Romanian
- https://dexonline.ro/ (“Dexonline – Dicționare ale limbii române”)
Greek
Albanian
- https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/natlang/ie/alb.html
- https://www.dpwa.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/dictionary/?lemmaid=9538
Baltic
Lithuanian
- https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/20614
- https://etimologija.baltnexus.lt/
- https://rromanes.org/pub/alii/Smoczyński W. Słownik etymologiczny języka litewskiego.pdf (“W. Smoczyński, Słownik etymologiczny języka litewskiego (there is also an English version, but not available in open access)”)
Slavic
Russian
Ukrainian
- http://litopys.org.ua/djvu/etymolog_slovnyk.htm (“Етимологічний словник української мови, ред. О. С. Мельничук”)
- http://litopys.org.ua/djvu/rudnycky_slovnyk.htm (“J. B. Rudnyc’kyj, An etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language”)
Belarussian
- https://knihi.com/none/Etymalahicny_slounik_bielaruskaj_movy_zip.html (“Этымалагічны слоўнік беларускай мовы”)
Polish
- https://slowniketymologiczny.uw.edu.pl/
- https://wsjp.pl/ (“Wielki słownik języka polskiego (includes chronology and etymology)”)
- https://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/426538?id=426538&from=publication (“A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego (in many respects obsolete, but sometimes still useful)”)
- https://polona.pl/item-view/90cf9d78-76a3-4a32-9fc3-e1dafd0756b8?page=2
- https://diglib.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/bis-verlag/wdlp/all_A.html (“A. de Vincenz, G. Hentschel, Wörterbuch der deutschen Lehnwörter in der polnischen Schrift- und Standardsprache”)
Slovene/Slovenian
Croatian
Bulgarian
Celtic
Welsh
Gaelic
Hittite
Trocharian
Trocharian B
Indo-Aryan
Sanskrit
Nepali
Ossetic
Pamir languages
Semitic
Arabic
- https://arabiclexicon.hawramani.com/ (actually a collection of dictionaries but provides early citations for lemmas)
- https://www.alankaa.com/etymology/زمرد
- https://archive.org/details/ArabicEtymologicalDictionary
Modern South Arabian
Soqotri
Hebrew
- https://archive.org/details/AComprehensiveEtymologicalDictionaryOfTheHebrewLanguageErnestKlein1987OCR/mode/1up (“E. Klein, A comprehensive etymological dictionary of the Hebrew language for readers of English”)
- https://www.sefaria.org/Klein_Dictionary?tab=contents
Aramaic
- https://cal.huc.edu/ (though not intended as an etymological dictionary you can find many etymologies in CAL)
Uralic
Hungarian
Saami
Estonian
Basque
Turkic
Turkish
- https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/
- https://lugatim.com/
- https://books.akademicka.pl/publishing/catalog/view/40/60/56-1 (“M. Stachowski, Kurzgefaßtes etymologisches Wörterbuch der türkischen Sprache”)
Chuvash
Gagauz
Mongolic
Austronesian
- https://acd.clld.org/ (based on the older but still sometimes useful https://www.trussel2.com/ACD/)
Malayo-Polynesian
Polynesian
Indonesian
Waray
Austroasiatic
Mon-Khmer
Dravidian
Sino-Tibetan
Chinese
- https://hanziyuan.net/ (for Chinese characters)
- https://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/ (“For Middle Chinese and Old Chinese phonetic reconstructions: The Baxter-Sagart reconstruction of Old Chinese”)
- https://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc_login/edoc_login.php (“For Old Chinese: Digital Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (NB: For Guest access, simply click the “Login” button)”)
Korean
Japonic
Japanese
- http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic (for Japanese Kanji)