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The OED online is free in most parts of the English-speaking world with a library card, and with its advanced search capabilities and historical thesaurus linked from every definition it is a far more powerful reference tool than the printed version. That said, you can still purchase all 20 volumes for USD $1100, or the one-volume compact edition (with magnifying glass) for USD $420.

If you are dead set on paper and not interested in words that stopped being used before Shakespeare, the 2-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is excellent and will meet your needs. You can get the 1993 printing (don't go any earlier) for very cheap. Ask beforehand to be sure the bookseller is selling you both volumes!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/019861134X/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used

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For a bit more, you can get the fifth edition (the sixth edition is current):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00EKYRFGE


[Edited to clarify who OED online is free for.]

Amazon Link because everyone deserves to read it at least once.

It's very short, around a hundred pages, and only $6 USD with free Prime shipping.

It's a truly powerful book from an actual Holocaust survivor.

Best answer. Related: there's a great book about the creation of the OED, The Professor and the Madman.

The older American Heritage dictionaries (red cover) had a marvelous supplemental section on Indo-European roots (which were referenced in the main text) - I still treasure mine for that (and other) reasons.

At some point (the 1990's?) they split that appendix off into a separate book.

There's also this

It features in Wikipedia's list of ethnic slurs and the reference leads to this as 'dark gable'.

edit: Here is the Fresh Prince saying it. It looks like a play on Clark Gable.

/u/Thelonious_Cube nailed it. You might be interested in George Lakoff's book Metaphors We Live By.

I originally intended to mention that the Barnhart book is now called the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, but looking on Amazon it seems it's harder to come by. Any idea why this is? It's the newer version of the book and I just got my copy last year on Amazon for around $25.

Saint Paul has a book.

It’s worth it if you live there.

Great question. Closest I have is the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, but it's not as useful as what you're describing for that purpose.

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/sanskritwords.asp
http://www.amazon.com/Bloomsbury-Dictionary-Word-Origins-John/dp/0747509719

If you want a serious treatment of religion, check out A Thinkers Guide to the Philosophy of Religion: http://amzn.com/0321243757

Co-written by an atheist and theist philosopher.

Is that book the same as [this] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812627393/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0JNE5KTKS4Q6BAF61KRS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846) ?

For more concerning al-Khwarizmi and the development of modern algebra, check out Unknown Quantity by John Derbyshire.

Etymologicon

https://www.amazon.com/Etymologicon-Circular-Through-Connections-Language/dp/0425260798

Indeed!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BTSGQQG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_A0lxDbHCAY48A

Here you go.

Shingle as a thin piece of wood derives from 1200, scincles, from Latin scindula. The meaning you are referring to is shingle as a small signboard or nameplate fixed outside the office of a doctor, lawyer and appears in American English in 1842. As u/TechnologyEvangelist states, the story goes that a shake (wooden) shingle was used to make the sign. The source for the date and reference is The American Language Supplement by H.L. Menken - 1945

"Instability" and "unstable" have the same root, the Latin adjective "stabilis" (from the verb "stare," to stay). Like /u/probably-yeah said, the prefixes "in" and "un" came to English from different sources: "in" is French/Latin and "un" is Germanic.

English spelling really didn't standardize until the advent of the printing press, and then the choices were made by book publishers and were often arbitrary. 'Correct' English spelling was developed piecemeal, and various attempts to streamline it over the centuries have failed. Source: Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way.

So is Yiddish with Dick and Jane.

"See Jane schlep. Schlep Jane schlep!"