etan

See also: etán, étan, and Etan

Basque

Noun

etan

1. inessive singular of eta

Czech

Alternative forms

• ethan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛtan]

Noun

etan m inan

1. (organic chemistry) ethane (C₂H₆)

   Coordinate terms: metan, propan, butan, pentan, hexan, heptan, oktan, nonan, dekan, undekan, dodekan

Declension

Declension of etan (hard masculine inanimate)

	singular	plural
nominative	etan	etany
genitive	etanu	etanů
dative	etanu	etanům
accusative	etan	etany
vocative	etane	etany
locative	etanu	etanech
instrumental	etanem	etany

Further reading

• “etan”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “etan”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “etan”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2026

Esperanto

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈetan/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -etan
• Syllabification: e‧tan

Adjective

etan

1. accusative singular of eta

Icelandic

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛːtan]

Noun

etan n (genitive singular etans, no plural)

1. (organic chemistry) ethane

Declension

Declension of etan (sg-only neuter)

	singular
	indefinite	definite
nominative	etan	etanið
accusative	etan	etanið
dative	etani	etaninu
genitive	etans	etansins

Related terms

• etanól
• eten

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

etan n (definite singular etanet) (uncountable)

1. ethane (aliphatic hydrocarbon, C₂H₆)

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

etan n (definite singular etanet) (uncountable)

1. ethane (as above)

Nupe

Etymology 1

Cognates include Yoruba ìtàn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /è.tã̀/

Noun

ètàn (plural ètànzhì)

1. history
2. tradition
3. lineage ; genealogy

Etymology 2

From e- (“nominalizing prefix”) +‎ tán (“to pain”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.tã́/

Noun

etán (plural etánzhì)

1. pain

Old Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *etan, from Proto-Germanic *etaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed-.

Verb

etan

1. to eat

Inflection

Conjugation of etan (strong class 5)

infinitive	etan
indicative	present	past
1st person singular	eto, eton	at
2nd person singular	itis	āti
3rd person singular	itit	at
1st person plural	etun	āton
2nd person plural	etit	ātot
3rd person plural	etunt	āton
subjunctive	present	past
1st person singular	ete	āti
2nd person singular	etis	āti
3rd person singular	ete	āti
1st person plural	etin	ātin
2nd person plural	etit	ātit
3rd person plural	etin	ātin
imperative	present
singular	et, it
plural	etit
participle	present	past
	etandi	etan, gietan

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: ēten
  • Dutch: eten
    • Afrikaans: eet
  • Limburgish: aete

Further reading

• “etan (II)”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

Old English

Alternative forms

• eata, eatta — Northumbrian
• eotan — Anglian, Kentish
• ætan

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *etan, from Proto-Germanic *etaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈe.tɑn/
• Rhymes: -e.tɑn

Verb

etan

1. to eat
   • late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Saint Augustine's Soliloquies

     Ne lyst mē nāwiht ðāra metta þe ic forhātan habbe, ac mē lyst ðāra þe ic getiohhod habbe tō ætanne, ðonne ic hī gesēo.

     I desire none of those meats which I have renounced; I desire those which I have thought right to eat, when I see them.

   • late 9th century, translation of Orosius’ History Against the Pagans

     Wearð þæt unġemetlīċe myċle ġefeoht betwuh Crētense, ⁊ Atheniense, þǣm folcum. ⁊ þā Crētense hæfdon ðone grimlēċan siġe, ⁊ ealle þā æþelestan bearn þāra Athēniensa hȳ ġenomon, ⁊ sealdon þǣm Mīnōtaurō tō etanne, þæt wæs healf mon healf lēo.

     There was an immensely great war between the Cretans and the Athenians. And the Cretans won a grim victory, and they took all the most noble of the Athenian children and gave them to the Minotaur, who was half man and half lion, for him to eat.

Usage notes

• Attested forms of the second and third person singular present tense of this verb are quite varied; the former is attested as itst, etest, etst, ytst, and ætst, and the latter as it, yt, ytt, et, ett, eteþ, ieteþ, yteþ, and iteþ.
• This should not, however, be taken to imply the phonological reality of all such attested forms. Confusion of ⟨i⟩, ⟨y⟩ and ⟨ie⟩ is frequent in West Saxon documents, and instances of these spellings almost certainly represent underlying, etymological /i/. The form ætst is likely an instance of false Saxonization of ⟨e⟩ of the kind occasionally evinced when a West Saxon scribe grows accustomed to mechanically replacing the ⟨e⟩ of a West Mercian or Kentish exemplar with the ⟨æ⟩ of his native dialect, or, conversely, it may be a hypercorrection committed by a speaker of one of these dialects overproducing forms in ⟨æ⟩ in an unsuccessful attempt to conform to the Late West Saxon Schriftsprache. Forms without syncope are expected in Anglian, and in West Mercian at least such forms ought also to evince i-umlaut (if not the far earlier Germanic raising of *e to *i in this environment), e.g. iteþ. The West Saxon forms ought to evince both syncope and i-umlaut, but occasional failure of syncope in short-stemmed strong verbs and analogical reintroduction of ⟨e⟩ may yield forms such as iteþ and eteþ alongside expected it(t), especially in Late West Saxon. Co-occurrence of forms with and without a final geminate is also to be expected, though it should be noted that the geminate existed only at the phonological level (if even at this); thus, variation in the spelling e.g. of it(t) attests only to uncertainty by the scribes whether to give precedence to underlying /itt/ or surface [it].
• The only possible 2nd and 3rd person singular stems of this word on a deep phonological are thus et-, it-, and, with analogical transferal of mutated /eo/ from forms such as dialectical eotan, theoretically also eot- (iot- or iat- in Kentish). The 3rd person singular ending may appear as -eþ syncopated -t, -þ or -∅ when the final geminate goes unexpressed, more rarely as -es or -et, and the 2nd person singular ending may be -es, -est, or syncopated -st, with rarer possibilities including -esþ, -s, -sþ, and even -eþ. Note that the -e- of either ending may appear as -i- in early texts. From the forms given here, a nigh exhaustive list of genuine possible variants of the 2nd and 3rd person singular of this word may be generated.

Conjugation

Preterite singular ǣt for æt is unexpected and sets this word and derivatives such as fretan apart from other verbs of class V like cweþan and wrecan. Anomalous length of the vowel is nevertheless confirmed by comparative evidence, at least for early Old English; see Proto-Germanic *etaną for details. The exceptional nature of this form renders it vulnerable to analogical shortening, however, and although vowel length is orthographically invisible in West Saxon ⟨æt⟩, this is not so in the Anglian and Kentish dialects of Old English, since early in the prehistory of these dialects stressed *ǣ was raised to *ē. Analogically shortened æt is in fact recorded in late Northumbrian Old English and co-occurs with expected ēt.

Conjugation of etan (strong, class V)

infinitive	etan	etenne
indicative mood	present tense	past tense
first person singular	ete	ǣt
second person singular	itst	ǣte
third person singular	itt, it	ǣt
plural	etaþ	ǣton
subjunctive	present tense	past tense
singular	ete	ǣte
plural	eten	ǣten
imperative
singular	et
plural	etaþ
participle	present	past
	etende	(ġe)eten

Derived terms

• āetan
• efnetan
• ġeetan
• þurhetan

Descendants

• Middle English: eten, eete, eeten, ete, etin, ethe, ette, æten, etenn (Early Middle English), etyn (East Anglia)
  • English: eat
  • Middle Scots: eit, eyt
    • Scots: eat, ait, aet
  • Yola: ayth, eight

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *etan.

Verb

etan

1. to eat

Conjugation

Conjugation of etan (strong class 5)

infinitive	etan
indicative	present	past
1st person singular	itu	at
2nd person singular	itis	āti
3rd person singular	itid	at
plural	etad	ātun
subjunctive	present	past
1st person singular	ete	āti
2nd person singular	etes	ātis
3rd person singular	ete	āti
plural	eten	ātin
imperative	present
singular	et
plural	etad
participle	present	past
	itandi	gietan, etan

Descendants

• Middle Low German: ēten
  • Low German: eten
  • Plautdietsch: äten

Polish

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₂eydʰ-der.

Proto-Hellenic *áitʰō

Ancient Greek αἴθω (aíthō)

▲

Ancient Greek ᾱ̓ήρ (āḗr)influ.?

Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr)der.

Latin aethērbor.

German Äther

German Ether

Proto-Indo-European *swel-der.?

Ancient Greek ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē)der.

German -yl

German Ethylbor.

English ethyl

English eth-

Proto-Indo-European *-nós

Proto-Italic *-nos

Latin -nus

Latin -ānusder.

English -ane

English ethanebor.

Polish etan

Borrowed from English ethane. By surface analysis, etyl +‎ -an.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛ.tan/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtan
• Syllabification: e‧tan

Noun

etan m inan

1. ethane

Declension

Declension of etan

	singular	plural
nominative	etan	etany
genitive	etanu	etanów
dative	etanowi	etanom
accusative	etan	etany
instrumental	etanem	etanami
locative	etanie	etanach
vocative	etanie	etany

Further reading

• “etan”, in Wielki słownik języka polskiego‎^[1] (in Polish), Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• “etan”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[2] (in Polish)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French éthane.

Noun

etan m (uncountable)

1. ethane

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	etan	etanul
genitive-dative	etan	etanului
vocative	etanule

Swedish

Etymology

From English ethane; equivalent to etyl +‎ -an.

Noun

etan n (uncountable)

1. (organic chemistry) ethane

Declension

Declension of etan

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	etan	etans
	definite	etanet	etanets
plural	indefinite	—	—
	definite	—	—

Anagrams

• Aten, ante, enat