Word Origin Atlas

Exact historical dictionary sense

Gift in Webster's 1913 dictionary

The 1913 record labels gift as noun. Its source-bounded etymology and selected historical definition appear below.

WEBSTER 1913noun
Gift

[OE. gift, yift, yeft, AS. gift, fr. gifan to give; akin to D. & G. gift, Icel. gift, gipt, Goth. gifts (in comp.). See Give, v. t.]

Cross-verified historical sense
The source text may be outdated. The page preserves that historical boundary.
Cross-verified 1913 record
Headwordgift
Part of speechnoun
Historical etymology[OE. gift, yift, yeft, AS. gift, fr. gifan to give; akin to D. & G. gift, Icel. gift, gipt, Goth. gifts (in comp.). See Give, v. t.]
Selected historical definitionAnything given; anything voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation; a present; an offering.
Signed record IDwebster1913-gift-noun-79b8c034226a
Source locatorCIDE.G, paragraph 2356; Gutenberg eBook 663
Edition-scoped answerNot earliest-attestation proofNot modern consensus
Independent historical textProject Gutenberg section 663Signed structural record sourceGNU GCIDE 0.54 archive
Quick answer

In Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), "gift" is labeled noun. Its etymology is recorded as: "[OE. gift, yift, yeft, AS. gift, fr. gifan to give; akin to D. & G. gift, Icel. gift, gipt, Goth. gifts (in comp.). See Give, v. t.]" The selected historical definition says: "Anything given; anything voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation; a present; an offering."

Project Gutenberg Webster 1913 plus signed GNU GCIDE 0.54 Exact cross-verified historical record reviewed 2026-10-04

What this answer proves

One named sense in one historical dictionary edition.

The answer reports the selected headword, part of speech, etymology, definition, and source locator as transcribed in the cross-verified 1913 record.

Evidence boundaryIt does not establish the earliest attestation or a complete borrowing chain.It does not claim current scholarly consensus or a modern dictionary definition.Historical dictionary text may be obsolete, incomplete, inaccurate, or offensive by modern standards.

More released G records

Every card owns a different source record and historical sense.

adjective

Game

[Cf. W. cam crooked, and E. gambol, n.]

Webster 1913 exact recordnoun

Group

[F groupe, It. gruppo, groppo, cluster, bunch, packet, group; of G. origin: cf. G. kropf craw, crop, tumor, bunch. See Crop, n.]

Webster 1913 exact recordverb

Guess

[OE. gessen; akin to Dan. gisse, Sw. gissa, Icel. gizha, D. gissen: cf. Dan. giette to guess, Icel. geta to get, to guess. Probably originally, to try to get, and akin to E. get. See Get.]

Webster 1913 exact recordnoun

Ground

[OE. ground, grund, AS. grund; akin to D. grond, OS., G., Sw., & Dan. grund, Icel. grunnr bottom, Goth. grundus (in composition); perh. orig. meaning, dust, gravel, and if so perh. akin to E. grind.]

Webster 1913 exact recordadjective

Grand

[OE. grant, grount, OF. grant, F. grand, fr. L. grandis; perh. akin to gravis heavy, E. grave, a. Cf. Grandee.]

Webster 1913 exact record

Browse released G records - browse all historical records.