Etymology

triffid

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Today it means: A fictional plant, able to move around and kill people with a poisonous stinger Full definition →

English trifid ← Latin trifidus ← Proto-Italic *findō
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*tréyes
  2. Proto-Indo-European*tri-
  3. Proto-Italic*tri-
  4. Latintri-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeyd-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*bʰinédti
  7. Proto-Italic*findō
  8. Latinfindō
  9. Latintrifidus
  10. Englishtrifid
  11. English todaytriffid

Coined by John Wyndham for his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids, by alteration of the botanical term trifid (“having three lobes”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.