Etymology

rutherford

R1U1T1H4E1R1F4O1R1D2

Today it means: An obsolete unit of radioactivity (symbol: rd), defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one million nuclei decay per second. Full definition →

Old English ford ← Proto-West Germanic *furdu ← Proto-Germanic *furduz
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

rutherford · noun1

After Ernest Rutherford.

Rutherford · proper noun2

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱer-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱerh₂-
  3. Proto-Germanic*hrinþaz
  4. Proto-West Germanic*hrinþ
  5. Proto-West Germanic*hrinþiʀu
  6. Proto-West Germanic*hrinþiʀ
  7. Old Englishhryþer
  8. Proto-Indo-European*per-
  9. Proto-Indo-European*pértus
  10. Proto-Germanic*furduz
  11. Proto-West Germanic*furdu
  12. Old Englishford
  13. English todayRutherford

From Old English hryþer (“cattle”) + ford (“ford”). The first element is from Proto-Germanic *hrunþaz.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*hrunþaz all →

rother

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.