D
fourth letter of the Roman alphabet, from Greek delta, from Phoenician and Hebrew daleth, pausal form of deleth "door," so called from its shape.
The form of the modern letter is the Greek delta (Δ) with one angle rounded. As the sign for "500" in Roman numerals, it is said to be half of CIƆ, which was an early form of M, the sign for "1,000." 3-D for "three-dimensional" is attested from 1952.
Unetymological -d- is the result of a tendency in English and neighboring languages, perhaps for euphony, to add -d- to -n-, and especially to insert or swap a -d- sound when -l- or -r- follow too closely an -n-.
Compare sound (n.1), gender (n.), thunder (n.), spindle, kindred, strand (n.2) "fiber of rope," dialectal rundel, rundle for runnel. Swound was a form of swoun (swoon) attested from mid-15c, and used by Malory, Spenser, Lyly, Middleton, Beaumont & Fletcher. Among the words from French are powder (n.), meddle, tender (adj.), remainder, also riband, jaundice. It is less evident in spider (an agent noun from the Germanic *spin- root), and perhaps explains lender in place of loaner.
Entries linking to D
c. 1300, "kind, sort, class, a class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits," from Old French gendre, genre "kind, species; character; gender" (12c., Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) "race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species," also "(male or female) sex," from PIE root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.
The unetymological -d- is a phonetic accretion in Old French (see D). Also used in Latin to translate Aristotle's Greek grammatical term genos. The grammatical sense is attested in English from late 14c. Jespersen ("Philosophy of Grammar," 1924) defines grammatical gender by reference to the Indo-European distinction of masculine, feminine, neuter, "whether the division be based on the natural division into two sexes, or on that between animate and inanimate, or on something else."
The "male-or-female sex" sense of the word is attested in English from early 15c. As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie.
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updated on November 17, 2023
