A free, systematically maintained public reference (etymonline.com, compiled by Douglas Harper since 2001) that synthesizes findings from academic etymological dictionaries, including Klein and Beekes, into short public entries for individual words and names. It is not itself a peer-reviewed academic work, but it is specific and honest about which words have a settled derivation and which do not, naming its own uncertainty rather than papering over it, which is the use this atlas makes of it: confirming that a name's origin is genuinely unresolved in the literature it draws on, not asserting a derivation of its own.
Facts
Citation
AuthorDouglas Harper
Publication Year2001
2001 is the site's founding year; entries are continuously revised rather than dated individually, a limitation this atlas states rather than assigning a false single publication date to any one entry. URLhttps://www.etymonline.com/
Source Typereference-database
Assessment
Reliability Tier3
A public secondary synthesis of academic dictionaries rather than a peer-reviewed work in its own right, so it sits below Beekes; used here only to confirm that a specific name's etymology is stated as unresolved in the academic sources it summarizes, a narrow and checkable claim rather than a novel derivation. Claims Backed By This Source (16 claims)
This source backs 16 claims across the atlas. As facts: 12 well-attested, 1 open question. As cited relationships: 1 holds. Plus 2 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Open Questions, 8 claims: 6 well-attested, 1 holds, 1 general references.
- Sources, 6 claims: 6 well-attested.
- Mythical Creatures, 2 claims: 1 open question, 1 general references.
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The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.