English

British

/ˈbɹɪtɪʃ/
The residents or inhabitants of Great Britain.

    Etymology graph

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    • derived
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    Origin

    From Middle English Brittish, from Old English Brettisċ.

    The spelling with single -t- appears in the 13th century under the influence of Medieval Latin Britannicus, but spelling with -tt- persists alongside -t- during the 13th to at least 18th centuries.

    In reference to the island of Great Britain from ca. 1400 (Latin natio Anglica sive Britannica, Brittisshe occean 1398, the Britishe nacion 1548).

    As a noun, referring to the British people, British soldiers, etc. from ca. 1600.

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle EnglishBrittish
      • inheritedOld EnglishBrettisċ
    • derived (possibly)Englishpetty “Having little or no importance.”
      • inheritedMiddle Englishpeti
        • derivedAnglo-Normanpetit
    • partClassical LatinBrītō “Briton”
    • partEnglish-o- “A linking vowel inserted interconsonantally between two morphemes, to ease pronunciation, without c…”
      • borrowedLatin-o-
        • derivedAncient Greek-ο-

    Sources