Word.ws English Dictionary

Evelyn

/ˈɛvəlɪn/

Evelyn proper noun: a female given name from the Germanic languages.

Proper noun

Evelyn

  1. A female given name from the Germanic languages.
    • Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! / Sit and watch by her side an hour.1855, Robert Browning, Evelyn Hope
    • "I don't wear flowers," Evelyn Lilith said, and tossed the unwanted chain into the air, spearing it before it fell with a pellet from her unerring Daisy air-pistol. Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious...1980, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, Alfred A.Knopf, published 1981, →ISBN, page 179
  2. A surname originating as a matronymic.
  3. A male given name transferred from the surname.
    • Evelyn Waugh
  4. A rural locality in Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia.
  5. A community in Middlesex Centre municipality, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada.
  6. A locality in Munising Township, Alger County, Michigan, United States.
  7. An unincorporated community in Henderson County, Texas, United States.
  8. A former unincorporated community in Wirt County, West Virginia, United States.

Origin of Evelyn

From Middle English forms of the Old French female name Aveline, diminutive of the Germanic root *avi-, of uncertain meaning, possibly “desired, wished for“ (compare Latin avēre, "to wish for") or aval “strength”. By folk etymology also misunderstood as a diminutive of the feminine given name Eve, q.v. Doublet of Eileen. Also compare Ava.

Words formed from Evelyn

Questions about Evelyn

What does Evelyn mean?
Evelyn means a female given name from the Germanic languages.
What part of speech is Evelyn?
Evelyn is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Evelyn?
Evelyn is pronounced /ˈɛvəlɪn/.

Words near Evelyn in the dictionary

  1. Eveleths
  2. evelight
  3. Evelike
  4. Evelina
  5. Eveline
  6. Evelyn
  7. Evelyne
  8. Evelynn
  9. even
  10. even a blind pig can find an acorn
  11. even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Evelyn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Evelyn (female).wav.

Cite this entry: “Evelyn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/evelyn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.