English Words: Their Origins and Historical Evolutions +

1. A prose narrative usually written in Iceland between 1120 and 1400, dealing with the families that first settled Iceland and their descendants, with the histories of the kings of Norway, and with the myths and legends of early Germanic gods and heroes.
2. A modern prose narrative that resembles a saga.
3. A long detailed report: "Bob recounted the saga of his family problems."
4. A complicated series of events or personal experiences stretching over a considerable period of time, or a detailed account of such a series of events or experiences.
5. Etymology: from Old Norse saga, "a saga, a story" cognate with Old English sagu, "a saying".

1. Literally, eating or consuming flesh; flesh-eating.
2. From Greek, sarkophagos, through Latin, sarcophagus; so named because the limestone, in which people were buried, caused rapid disintegration or decomposition of the bodies.
3. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was a limestone coffin or tomb, often inscribed and ornamented.
4. Now, by extension, the term is used for any stone coffin, especially a large or monumental tomb.

1. Having unpleasant qualities associated with a degraded or degenerate way of living.
2. Unpleasant or sordid, low, disagreeable; such as, the seamy side of life.
3. A reference to unpleasant and usually illegal things; such as, crime, drugs, prostitution, etc.: "They were involved in a seamy corruption scandal."
4. Having, marked with, or showing a sewn seam.
5. Etymology: from about 1604, in a figurative sense, "seamy side, least pleasant, worst"; from seam, the seamy side, or alluding to the underside of a garment on which the rough edges of the seams are visible and less attractive; and therefore, typically turned in.

1. Slave, a person who is forced to work for another person for no payment and is regarded as the property of the person he or she works for.
2. Slave, a person who is completely dominated by someone or something.
3. Slave, someone who meekly accepts being ruled by someone else.
4. Slave, someone who works or has to work very hard, often in bad conditions and for low pay.
5. Slaver, someone who owns or buys and sells slaves.
6. Slavery, a system based on using the enforced labor of other people.
7. Slavish, of or characteristic of a slave or slavery; servile. Showing no originality; blindly imitative.

Etymology: Originally a reference to Slavs. This sense of development arose as the consequences of the wars waged by Otto the Great and his successors against the Slavs, a great number of whom were taken captive and sold into servitude.

Otto who was king of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor (912-973). Otto succeeded his father as king of the Germans in 936. He arranged for his coronation to be held in Charlemagne's former capital, Aachen, where he was anointed by the archbishop of Mainz, primate of the German church.

The name Slav has the literal meaning of "speaker". They are members of any of the people of Eastern Europe and North Western Asia that speak one of the Slavonic languages; such as, those who speak Bulgarian, Russian, and Polish.

The term apparently appeared in the 14th century via medieval Latin Sclavus from medieval Greek Sklabos, an alteration of Old Slavic Sloveninu.

1. Dirty, disreputable, or sordid in character or appearance.
2. Dishonest or immoral: "This bar gets some sleazy characters; especially, at night."
3. Shabby, dirty, and vulgar; tawdry: "That neighborhood has so many sleazy storefronts with torn carpeting and dirt on the walls".
4. Dishonest or corrupt; disreputable.
5. Made of low-quality materials; cheap or shoddy.
6. Thin and loosely woven material; flimsy: "This coat has such a sleazy lining and exterior.
7. Etymology: from 1644, "hairy, fuzzy", later "flimsy, unsubstantial" (from 1670); of unknown origin.

1. A person, especially a woman, considered sexually promiscuous.
2. A female prostitute.
3. A slovenly woman; a slattern: a prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets, or a reference to a dirty untidy woman.
4. Casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior.
5. Etymology: from 1402, "a dirty, slovenly, or untidy woman"; probably cognate with dialectal German Schlutt, "slovenly woman"; dialectal Swedish slata, "idle woman, slut"; and Dutch slodder, "slut"; but the ultimate origin is doubtful. Chaucer uses sluttish (c.1386) also in reference to the appearance of an "untidy man".

1. Doing something slowly, quietly, and covertly, in order to avoid detection.
2. Avoiding detection by moving carefully.
3. Secretive, dishonest, cunning behavior, or actions.
4. Etymology: "theft, action" or "practice of stealing"; from Old English stælþ, which is related to stelen, "steal"; from Proto German stælitho. The sense of "secret action" developed about 1300, but the word also retained its etymological sense into the 18th century.

1. A fixed period of time spent on a task or job: "She had to do a two-year stint as an apprentice in her new job."
2. An individual's prescribed share of work: "Her stint as a nanny prepared her for motherhood."
3. A imitation or restriction; especially, in time or amount.
4. An unbroken period of time during which something is done.
4. A pause or stoppage (archaic).
5. Smallest American sandpiper.
6. To supply sparingly and with restricted quantities.
7. To subsist on a meager allowance.
8. Etymology: "to limit, restrain, to be sparing" or "frugal," from Old English styntan "to blunt, to make dull".

1. To move or to swing back and forward, as something fixed at one end or resting on a support.
2. To move or to incline to one side or in a particular direction.
3. To fluctuate or to vacillate, as with an opinion.
4. To wield power; to exercise rule.
5. Etymology: "to go, to glide, to move," probably from Old Norse sveigja, "to bend, to swing, to give way".

1. A person who is in bondage; a slave.
2. A person who is morally or mentally enslaved by some power, influence, etc.
3. Archaic. to put or hold in thralldom; to enslave.
4. Etymology: Old English þrael, "bondsman, serf, slave", from Old Norse þraell, "slave, servant".

1. To trample on something: to step or put a foot on something, especially so as to crush or to damage it: "Don't tread on the grass". "Tired and weary, they trod back to camp."
2. To take a step or steps, or walk or step on, across, or along something: "He has gone where others fear to tread."
3. To form something, such as, a path by trampling or walking: "You can see that countless footsteps have been trodden to his door."
4. To proceed or to behave in a particular way: "The opposition realized that it would have to tread carefully against the other political party."
5. To repress or to treat someone or something harshly; such as, treading on someone's feelings or to tread on someone's toes.
6. A way or sound of walking or stepping: "We could not help but hear the heavy tread of their marching feet."
7. An act of walking on or of trampling on something.
8. The horizontal part of a step in a staircase.
9. The width of the horizontal part of a step, measured from front to back.
10. The part of the surface of a tire or wheel that comes in contact with a road or rail.
11. The depth of grooves on the surface of a tire: "The treads of the tires were badly worn."
12. That part of the sole of a shoe, or boot, that touches the ground: "Her running shoes had good treads."
13. Etymology: Old English tredan, from Proto-Germanic tredanan.

The noun is recorded from about 1225, from the verb; in reference to automobile tires, it is recorded from 1906.

The past tense of tread is trod: "Our ancestors trod this same path." The past participle is trodden or trod: "Dr. Livingstone visited parts of Africa where the foot of a white man had never trod."

"Look where the rabbits have trodden out a path in the snow."

A small, flat bar that is pressed with the foot to operate a machine; such as, a pump or a sewing machine.

Treadles are normally used to cause rotary motions.

Without treads or having no treads; such as, the part of a shoe or boot sole that touches the ground; the pattern on the bottom of a sole; the part of a wheel or tire that makes contact with a road or rail; and the pattern of ridges or grooves made or cut in the face of a tire: "It is very dangerous to drive a car with treadless tires."

1. An exercise machine that has a large belt that moves around while someone walks or runs on it.
2. A boring or tiring activity, job, etc., in which a person repeatedly does the same things; such as, the office treadmill, the treadmill of exhausting family schedules.
3. There is a similar mechanism that is operated by quadrupeds; such as, horses.
4. The "treadmill" was invented and named in 1822 by William Cubitt of Ipswich, England; and it was originally an instrument used for prison discipline.

The roadway on certain kinds of bridges.