Etymology: This is kind of backwards, but how can you find out what English words come from a Latin word?

Question

I know you usually do it the other way around. It's usually pretty easy to find the origins of a word, but sometimes I'm curious what other English words come from the same Latin or Greek or other root - like cavalry and chivalry from caballus.
Is there a name for words that come from the same root? There should be.
I'm very, very not a linguistical person (ha ha). But I enjoy digging around in word origins.
By thw way, if you love words, check out "Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends" by David Wilton.
Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

You are right that it's generally easier to look up etymologies of English words than find root lists with examples.

I hope the following will include something helpful for that. (Note that most material includes more than just Latin roots... adding at least Greek in a "classical roots" collection)

The most useful ready-to-hand tool I've found for this is a free piece of software called "Roots of English" (last updated in 1999 but still works on any Windows system). It has just the sort of entries I think you want -- root + meaning + various English words derived from it (usually much more than just "examples"). Download it from this page:
http://artsci.shu.edu/classics/classics/rootsof.htm

If you want a reference BOOK, you might check out what your local library has. Here are a couple of the sort that MAY suit your purposes (including English words, at least examples)
Word Stems: A Dictionary by John Kennedy (Soho Press, 1996)
English Words from Latin and Greek Elements by by Donald M. Ayers, Thomas D. Worthen, R. L. Cherry (University of Arizona Press, 1986)

Here are a few online resources --

These are LONG lists of roots. From these starting pages you can move to any letter for a list of roots, meanings and examples
http://archives.nd.edu/latgramm.htm
http://www.phthiraptera.org/Classical%20Roots/Classic_frame.html
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/


And here are some simple, handy "one (web) page" lists. The first two are much longer. (The other two are meant more for quick printout reference.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_words_with_English_derivatives
http://abasiccurriculum.com/homeschool/roots/roma/
http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/roots.dict.html
http://www.awrsd.org/oak/Library/greek_and_latin_root_words.htm

Answer 2

Romance languages are languages whose roots are in Latin. There are five major Romance languages, the languages that are National languages. They are: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Other, smaller languages include Gallego, Catalán, Provençal, Romansch (a language only spoken by a tiny minority of mountain dwellers in Switzerland). English is NOT a mongrel language, the person who said that has no concept of linguistics. English is a Teutonic language. That means that its roots are in the same origins as German, Yiddish, Danish, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian. This is a linguistic fact, not some goofy opinion. If you look at old English text, and know how to study the history of a language, you will see the roots. You can also see that the simple words have their basics in German. Maid - Mädchen School - Schule Book - Buch My German has slipped, but if you look at such words, you will begin to understand the connection.

Answer 3

If you buy an adequate dictionary, you will find that the etymology is given along with the definition.
The most common, one-syllable words in English tend to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, while polysyllabic words tend to stem from Latin through French.
You can read Chaucer in Middle English, and find very few words which are Latin in origin.