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but: but: [OE] But originally meant ‘outside’. It was a compound word formed in prehistoric West Germanic from *be (source of English by) and *ūtana (related to English out). This gave Old English būtan, which quickly developed in meaning from ‘outside’ to ‘without, except’, as in ‘all but me’ (the sense ‘outside’ survived longer in Scotland than elsewhere). The modern conjunctive use of but did not develop until the late 13th century.
=> by, out
kaleidoscope: kaleidoscope: [19] Greek kalós meant ‘beautiful’ (it was related to Sanskrit kalyāna ‘beautiful’). It has given English a number of compound words: calligraphy [17], for instance, etymologically ‘beautiful writing’, callipygian [18], ‘having beautiful buttocks’, and callisthenics [19], literally ‘beauty and strength’. The Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster used it, along with Greek eidos ‘shape’ and the element -scope denoting ‘observation instrument’, to name a device he invented in 1817 for looking at rotating patterns of coloured glass – a ‘beautiful-shape viewer’.
=> calligraphy, callisthenics
phone: phone: [20] Phone is of course short for telephone [19], a compound word formed from Greek tēle- ‘far off’ and phōné ‘voice, sound’ (a descendant of the Indo-European base *bha- ‘speak’, and related to English fable, fame, fate, etc). Other English words derived from or based on phōné include gramophone, megaphone [19], microphone, phonetic [19], phonology [18], saxophone, and xylophone.
=> fable, fame, fate
sesquipedalian: sesquipedalian: [17] Sesquipedalian means etymologically ‘a foot and a half long’. Its use in English was inspired by the Roman poet Horace’s phrase sesquipedalia verba, literally ‘words a foot and a half long’, hence ‘preposterously long words that sound pompous’ – of which sesquipedalian itself is an appropriately good example. It is a compound word formed from the Latin prefix sesqui- ‘half as much again’ (a derivative of sēmi- ‘half’) and pēs ‘foot’.
=> foot, pedal
twist: twist: [OE] Twist appears to come ultimately from prehistoric Germanic base *twi- ‘double’, which also underlies English twice, twig, twin, etc. In Old English it is found only in compound words, denoting such things as ‘rope’ (presumably originally made from ‘two’ strands) and ‘forked objects’. It does not appear as an independent word until the 14th century, by which time its association with ‘rope’ had given it the sense ‘wrench, wind’.
=> two
welcome: welcome: [12] Old English had the greeting wilcume, which was a compound word formed from wil- ‘pleasure’ (ancestor of modern English will) and cume, a derivative of cuman ‘come’. From it was formed the verb wilcumian ‘welcome’. (German has the parallel wilkommen.) Then in the early Middle English period, due to the similarity of well and the influence of the parallel Old French greeting bienvenu (literally ‘well come’), it changed to welcome.
=> come, will
abortive (adj.): late 14c., "born prematurely or dead," from Latin abortivus "pertaining to miscarriage; causing abortion," from abort-, past participle stem of aboriri "disappear, miscarry," from ab- "amiss" (see ab-) + oriri "appear, be born, arise" (see orchestra); the compound word used in Latin for deaths, miscarriages, sunsets, etc. The Latin verb for "to produce an abortion" was abigo, literally "to drive away." Not originally used to imply forced or deliberate miscarriage; from 14c.-18c. stillborn children or domestic animals were said to be abortive. Also see abortion. Related: Abortiveness.
all: Old English eall "all, every, entire," from Proto-Germanic *alnaz (cognates: Old Frisian, Old High German al, Old Norse allr, Gothic alls), with no certain connection outside Germanic.

Combinations with all meaning "wholly, without limit" were common in Old English (such as eall-halig "all-holy," eall-mihtig "all-mighty") and the method continued to form new compound words throughout the history of English. First record of all out "to one's full powers" is 1880. All-terrain vehicle first recorded 1968. All clear as a signal of "no danger" is recorded from 1902. All right, indicative of approval, is attested from 1953.
amino-: 1887, as an element in compound words involving chemicals, from comb. form of amine. Amino acid is attested from 1898.
aspirin (n.): coined 1899 by German chemist Heinrich Dreser (1860-1924) in German as a trademark name, from Latin Spiraea (ulmaria) "meadow-sweet," the plant in whose flowers or leaves the processed acid in the medicine is naturally found, + common chemical ending -in (see -ine (2)). Spiraea (Tournefort, 1700) is from Latinized form of Greek speiraia "meadow-sweet," so called from the shape of its follicles (see spiral (adj.)). The initial -a- is to acknowledge acetylation; Dreser said the word was a contraction of acetylierte spirsäure, the German name of the acid, which now is obsolete, replaced by salicylic acid.
Die Bezeichnung Aspirin ist abgeleitet aus "Spirsäure" -- alter Name der Salicylsäure und A = Acetyl; statt" Acetylirte Spirsäure, kurzweg "Aspirin". [H, Dreser, "Pharmakologisches über Aspirin (Acetylsalicylsäure)," in "Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie des Menschen und der Thiere," 1899, p.307]
The custom of giving commercial names to medicinal products began in Germany in the late 19th century, when nascent pharmaceutical firms were discovering medical uses for common, easily made chemicals. To discourage competitors they would market the substance under a short trademarked name a doctor could remember, rather than the long chemical compound word. German law required prescriptions to be filled exactly as written.
behoove (v.): Old English behofian "to have need of, have use for," verbal form of the ancient compound word represented by behoof.
Historically, it rimes with move, prove, but being now mainly a literary word, it is generally made to rime with rove, grove, by those who know it only in books. [OED]
belive (v.): Old English belifan "remain," intransitive form of belæfan "cause to remain" (see beleave). A general Germanic word (cognates: Gothic beleiban, Old High German biliban, German bleiben, Dutch blijven); confused in early Middle English with beleave and merged into it, which gave beleave two clashing senses ("to leave," also "to remain") which might be why the compound word, the cognate of important verbs in other Germanic languages, was abandoned in English and only leave (v.) remains.
chemo-: before vowels chem-, word-forming element denoting "relation to chemical action or chemicals," from comb. form of chemical (adj.), used to form scientific compound words from c. 1900.
dis-: (assimilated as dif- before -f-, to di- before most voiced consonants), word-forming element meaning 1. "lack of, not" (as in dishonest); 2. "do the opposite of" (as in disallow); 3. "apart, away" (as in discard), from Old French des- or directly from Latin dis- "apart, in a different direction, between," figuratively "not, un-," also "exceedingly, utterly," from PIE *dis- "apart, asunder" (cognates: Old English te-, Old Saxon ti-, Old High German ze-, German zer-).

The PIE root is a secondary form of *dwis- and thus is related to Latin bis "twice" (originally *dvis) and to duo, on notion of "two ways, in twain."

In classical Latin, dis- paralelled de- and had much the same meaning, but in Late Latin dis- came to be the favored form and this passed into Old French as des-, the form used for new compound words formed in Old French, where it increasingly had a privative sense ("not").

In English, many of these words eventually were altered back to dis-, while in French many have been altered back to de-. The usual confusion prevails.
eo-: word-forming element, used from mid-19c. (first in Eocene) in compound words formed by earth-scientists, and meaning "characterized by the earliest appearance of," from Greek eos "dawn, morning, daybreak," also the name of the goddess of the morning, from PIE *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn (see aurora). Piltdown Man, before exposed as a fraud, was known as Eoanthropus.
ex (n.): 1827, originally short for ex-Catholic; see ex-. Since 1929 as abbreviation for ex-wife, ex-husband, etc. Also used in some commercial compound words for "from, out of."
Franco-: word-forming element meaning "French" or "the Franks," from Medieval Latin comb. form of Franci "the Franks" (see Frank), hence, by extension, "the French." Used from early 18c. in forming English compound words.
tmesis (n.): 1580s, from Greek tmesis "a cutting," related to temnein "to cut," tome "a cutting" (see tome). The separation of the elements of a compound word by the interposition of another word or words (such as a whole nother).