Etymology Multilingual

This plugin allows you to look up the etymology of words in English, Spanish, and French directly within your Obsidian notes.

It is a fork and extension of the Etymology Lookup plugin by clairefro, which originally supported only English. This version introduces multilingual support, dictionary integration, caching, and more.

Features

• Multilingual Support — Look up word origins in English, Spanish, and French.
• Contextual Search — Highlight a word, right-click, or use the command palette to fetch its etymology.
• Default Language — Set a preferred language in settings to skip the language prompt entirely.
• Dictionary Integration — Save an etymology directly into a matching note's frontmatter property (e.g. Etimología) inside a configured folder.
• Paste at Cursor — Insert an etymology into your active note at the cursor position.
• Copy to Clipboard — Copy any etymology result with one click.
• In-Memory Caching — Repeated lookups for the same word are instant. Configurable TTL (default: 30 minutes).
• Keyboard Shortcuts — Press 1, 2, or 3 in the language prompt to select a language instantly.
• Loading Indicator — Animated spinner while results are being fetched.

Data Sources

This plugin fetches data from the following online dictionaries (internet connection required):

English

• Online Etymology Dictionary (Douglas Harper).

Spanish

• DPD — Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas (RAE).
• DLE — Diccionario de la Lengua Española (RAE).
• Diccionario Etimológico de Chile.

French

• Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary).
• CNRTL — Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales.

How to Use

1. Highlight a word in your active note.
2. Do one of the following:
   • Open the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P) and run "Etymology Multilingual: Search Etymology".
   • Right-click the selection and choose "Get etymology of …".
   • Click the bird icon in the ribbon (left sidebar).
3. Select a language (or skip this step if you've set a default in settings).
4. Browse the results in the modal. Each result has three actions:
   • Copy — copies the etymology text to your clipboard.
   • Paste at cursor — inserts the text into your active note at the cursor.
   • Save to dictionary — writes the etymology into a matching note's frontmatter (requires configuration, see below).

Settings

Open Settings → Etymology Multilingual to configure:

Setting	Description
Default language	Skip the language prompt and always search in this language. Set to "Always ask" to be prompted each time.
Cache duration	How long (in minutes) to keep results in memory. Set to 0 to disable caching.
Clear cache	Manually clear all cached results.
Dictionary folder	Path to the folder containing your dictionary notes (e.g. Diccionario). Leave empty to disable dictionary integration.
Dictionary property	The frontmatter property where etymology will be saved (e.g. Etimología).

Dictionary Integration

If you maintain a personal dictionary in Obsidian where each word is a separate note (e.g. abarloar.md, abalorio.md), you can save etymologies directly into those notes' frontmatter:

1. Set the Dictionary folder to the folder containing your word notes.
2. Set the Dictionary property to the frontmatter field name (e.g. Etimología).
3. When viewing etymology results, click "Save to dictionary" on the result you want to keep.
4. The plugin finds the note whose filename matches the searched word and updates the specified property.

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release from the GitHub Releases page.
2. Extract main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.
3. Place them in .obsidian/plugins/etymology-multilingual/.
4. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin.

Credits

• Original code and concept by clairefro.
• English data courtesy of Etymonline.
• Spanish data courtesy of RAE and Etimologías de Chile.
• French data courtesy of Wiktionnaire and CNRTL.