Etymology

Tasmania

T1A1S1M3A1N1I1A1

Today it means: One of the six federal states of Australia, consisting of one large, eponymous and several much smaller islands, off the eastern part of Australia's south coast; a former British colony, from 1856 to 1901. Capital: Hobart. Full definition →

English Tasman ← Dutch Tasman ← Middle Dutch man
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Germanic*taskǭ
  2. Frankish*taska
  3. Proto-West Germanic*taska
  4. Old Dutch*taska
  5. Middle Dutchtassche
  6. Dutchtas
  7. Proto-Indo-European*mon-
  8. Proto-Germanic*mann-
  9. Proto-West Germanic*mann
  10. Old Dutchman
  11. Middle Dutchman
  12. Dutchman
  13. DutchTasman
  14. EnglishTasman
  15. English todayTasmania

From Tasman + -ia, after the Dutch naval explorer Abel Tasman, who visited and documented the island and New Zealand in 1642.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.