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Diachronica app icon

Diachronica

Follow a word from its oldest known form to today. Timelines, maps, and etymology notes for language-curious readers.

Diachronica website showing a word history timeline and etymology notes
Search any word and open its history in seconds.
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iPhone and iPad 1.2.4, September 3, 2026. Android 1.2.5 (10205), October 2, 2026.

Google Play beta: Prefer Play Store updates to sideloading? Join the Coolhand beta group first (I’d really appreciate it). I’ll add this app’s opt-in link here when its Play beta is ready.

Installing on Android: Tap Android Download, open the downloaded file, and allow installs from this source if Android asks. If installation is blocked, tap Advanced, then Install anyway.

  • The start screen: a search box with a Trace button, a row of suggested words and a prompt to type any English word.
  • The entry for orange, borrowed from Tamil nāram before 1400, with 8 ancestors, 8 languages and 30 centuries above its definition and story.
  • The Journey map for orange, a red line tracing the word from language to language.
  • The Usage tab for orange: a bar chart of how often the word appears from Old English to today, above its cognates.
  • Relatives of orange in other languages, among them Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Old English and German.
  • The same entry in the dark Scriptorium theme, with the usage chart and the first cognates.