A commonplace book of words

EtyBites

Half-minute etymologies, weekly

Terms of use

In effect from the twentieth day of May, mmxxvi

EtyBites is a small, independent project that publishes very short videos about the histories of English words. The clips are free to watch, to share, and to quote with attribution. They are essays, not lessons; they are starting points for curiosity, not definitive scholarly entries. By visiting this page or watching a video this page points to, you agree to the conditions laid out below.

Acceptance

There is no login, no account, and nothing purchased on this site, so acceptance is a quiet matter: by reading the site or watching a clip, you accept these terms. If you would rather not, closing the tab is sufficient and entirely unremarkable.

What EtyBites publishes

Short-form video clips, generally around thirty seconds, each tracing the history of one English word. Each clip is produced with assistance from AI tools — for script drafting, narration, captioning, and selection of stock-footage illustration — and is reviewed by a human editor before publication. Every TikTok publication carries the platform's AI-generated-content label per platform policy.

The clips are simplifications by design. Thirty seconds cannot hold the full evidential trail of an etymological claim. We do our best to be careful, to name contested cases, and to flag folk etymologies that have outlived their welcome. The dictionary remains the dictionary; we are a friendlier route in.

Not advice, not authoritative

Nothing here is professional, academic, legal, medical, or psychological advice. The clips are not peer-reviewed and are not a substitute for the work of historical linguists. If you are quoting an etymology in a paper, a book, a lecture, or anywhere else where being correct matters, please consult the underlying dictionaries and journal articles — that is what they are for.

What you may do with the work

Watch and re-watch

any clip, on the native platform, as many times as you like.

Share

clip links with friends, students, colleagues, book groups, classrooms, conference talks, internal wikis.

Quote

a clip in your own writing, with credit and a link back to the original.

Reference

the channel, the format, or a specific episode in teaching, podcasting, or academic work, with attribution.

What you may not do with the work

Reupload

the clips, in whole or in part, as your own content on any platform.

Strip

captions, intro, outro, or attribution from a clip.

Train

machine-learning models on the clips, on their transcripts, on the captions, or on the content of this site — in whole or in part — without prior written permission.

Imply

endorsement of, partnership with, or affiliation with any product, app, university, course, publisher, or organisation based on a clip's content. We do not endorse, partner, or affiliate.

No warranty

The site and the clips are offered as-is, with no warranty of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose. Etymology is an active, working field; new evidence sometimes overturns a tidy story; older popular etymologies linger long after their welcome. We try to flag this in the clip when it is relevant, but the final responsibility for "is this the current scholarly view?" rests with the reader.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the operator of this site is not liable for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages arising from your use of the site or the clips — including, but not limited to, dinner-table arguments lost on account of an inaccurate folk etymology you remembered being corrected here.

Third-party links

This site links to TikTok, may link to dictionaries, may reference scholarly works by name. We do not control those services and are not responsible for their content, availability, policies, or pricing.

Changes

These terms can change. The effective date above will move when they do. Any material change will be summarised in this section for at least thirty days.

Questions, takedown requests, corrections: contact@etybites.com