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modern pentathlon

An athletic contest first held at the 1912 Olympics in which each participant competes in five events (running, swimming, horseback riding, fencing, and pistol shooting), with the running and shooting events now combined as a single event.

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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