Word Origin Summary

Mal is attested in French. Follow the ancestry chain below to trace where this term came from and how it branched into later descendants.

Ancestry Chain

1. *(s)mal-Proto-Indo-Europeanderived from
2. *mel-Proto-Indo-Europeanderived from
3. *masdosProto-Indo-Europeaninherited from
4. maleLatininherited from
5. malFrenchinherited from
6. malusLatininherited from
7. μηλέαAncient Greekderived from
8. *malosProto-Italicinherited from

Descendants and Related Terms

• malplassert

  Norwegian Nynorsk · derived from

• malplassert

  Norwegian Bokmål · derived from

• malli

  Finnish · derived from

• mal

  Dutch · derived from

• malelve

  Mauritian Creole · derived from

• mal

  English · borrowed from

• mal

  Norwegian Nynorsk · derived from

• mal

  Indonesian · borrowed from

What You Can Explore

• 🗺️Geographic migration map — see where this word traveled
• 🌳Language family tree — trace connections across related languages
• 📅Historical timeline — when the word entered different languages
• 🔤Cognates — related words in other languages sharing the same root