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Actually, “autarky” and “autarchy” are two different words. The former means “self-sufficiency” and comes from the Greek arkein “to suffice”. The latter means “absolute rule” and comes from Greek arkh …

The Dutch traders identified, by folk-etymology, Arabic bunn with Dutch boon “bean”, and it is for this reason that in English too we wrongly refer to “coffee beans”. …

New High German (NHG) Auge and English eye are believed to descend from Proto-Germanic *augan- and Proto-Indo-European *ōkū-. NHG Ei and English egg are from PG *ajjam- and PIE *ōiom. These words ar …

In Arabic the word for “human being of either sex” is ʼinsān, from the same root as nisāʼ “women”. The usual word for “male human being” is rajul.

The basic meaning of the Germanic *wirr is “disorder, chaos” etc. The shift in meaning to “warfare” originated in Frankish and is attested since the 9th century in High German, English, but not Franki …

The main problem with these particular reconstructions is that the author of "etymonline" does not use diacritics. In fact, there is a very significant difference between *g and *ǵ (they develop diff …

The prefix δυ- is from δύω “two” < IE *duō. The prefix δι- is from δίς “twice” < IE *dwi- (the /w/ is lost in Greek). Both are common in Greek. By the way: “division” is from Latin, not Greek. There …

The semantic shift seems to be: time > weather > wind For the first step compare Latin tempus “time” > French temps (“time, weather”). For the second compare German Wetter (“weather”) with Russian vet …

dušman and δυσμενής are Indo-European cognates. The Persian word comes from Old Iranian *duš-manyu- (cf Avestan dušmanah-), “whose mind is bad”. The Punjabi word (also Hindi, Urdu etc.) is a borrowin …

America has its name from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, whose first name is of Germanic origin. Việt Nam is Middle Chinese, meaning “Southern Yue”. Iraq is (probably) from Middle Persian ērag …

On the suggested Indo-European etymology (and for a suggestion that the word was probably a strong verb during its earlier history in English) see especially R. … Lass ‘Four letters in search of an etymology’ in Diachronica 12 (1995) 99–111. Note the copious use of "probably", "perhaps" etc. …

Hebrew šɛmɛn שמן “oil, fat” is a Semitic cognate of Arabic samn سمن “fat, butter” (with Semitic s1). It is not related to šaḥm شحم “fat, grease” (with Semitic s2 and ḥ) or to the IE words mentioned ab …

The Greek word kalamos “reed, reed pen, stylus” has a good Indo-European etymology (cognate with, for example, German Halm “reed”). …

The French words for the cardinal points (nord, sud, est, ouest) are definitely borrowed from some Germanic language, presumably in connection with seafaring in the North Sea. (This answers the "why" …

This is a long-standing discussion. The idea is that the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans counted on the four fingers (not including the thumb) of one hand. *oktō is a dual meaning “two spans”. The wor …