Word Origin Atlas

Exact historical dictionary sense

Hong in Webster's 1913 dictionary

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

WEBSTER 1913noun
Hong

[Chinese hang, Canton dialect hong, a mercantile house, factory.]

Cross-verified historical sense
The source text may be outdated. The page preserves that historical boundary.
Cross-verified 1913 record
Headwordhong
Part of speechnoun
Historical etymology[Chinese hang, Canton dialect hong, a mercantile house, factory.]
Selected historical definitionA mercantile establishment or factory for foreign trade in China, as formerly at Canton; a succession of offices connected by a common passage and used for business or storage.
Signed record IDwebster1913-hong-noun-33c8782d368d
Source locatorCIDE.H, paragraph 5862; 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), "hong" is labeled noun. Its etymology is recorded as: "[Chinese hang, Canton dialect hong, a mercantile house, factory.]" The selected historical definition says: "A mercantile establishment or factory for foreign trade in China, as formerly at Canton; a succession of offices connected by a common passage and used for business or storage."

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.

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