Origin and history of NATO

source also of Old Saxon netila, Middle Dutch netele, Dutch netel, German Nessel, Danish nædlæ "nettle"), diminutive of *nato...

The distinction from acronym is not universally agreed-upon; but in general, cases such as NATO, where the letters always...

The noun also was the NATO reporting name for a type of Soviet missile introduced in the 1960s....

By 1964, as the Soviet Union caught up to NATO in ICBMs, the mutual was added, perhaps first by Donald Brennan, conservative...

1705, "phase of the moon, particular recurrent appearance presented by the moon (or Mercury or Venus) at a particular time," back-formed as a singular from Modern Latin phases, plural of phasis, from Greek phasis "appearance" (of a star), "phase" (of the moon), from stem of phain

"create, fashion, form," Middle English shapen, from Old English scapan, past participle of scieppan "to form, create, make out of existing materials; bring into existence; destine" (past tense scop, often used of God). This is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *skapjanan "

"the Netherlands," early 14c., from Dutch Holland, probably Old Dutch holt lant "wood land," describing the district around Dordrecht, the nucleus of Holland. Technically, just one province of the Netherlands, but in English use extended to the whole nation. Related: Hollandish.

c. 1600, "Low Germany and the Netherlands," from the Latin name of the territory occupied by the Belgæ, a Celtic or Celto-Germanic tribe that in Roman times occupied the area below the mouth of the Rhine, including modern Belgium and much of northeastern France. Adopted 1830 as t

Old English us (cognate with Old Saxon, Old Frisian us, Old Norse, Swedish oss, Dutch ons, German uns), accusative and dative plural of we, from PIE *nes- (2), forming oblique cases of the first person plural personal pronoun (source also of Sanskrit nas, Avestan na, Hittite nash

1507, "the western hemisphere, North and South America," in Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's treatise "Cosmographiae Introductio," from Modern Latin Americanus, traditionally after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who made two trips to the New World as a navigator and claimed to h