On the assumption that anyone interested in writing might also be interested in the origins of words, here are some websites where you can look up where a word came from:
http://www.word-detective.com/
The latter has an interesting description of the origin of "boilerplate," that dense writing that lawyers can cut and paste into a document so easily and legal writing professors eschew. Click on: http://www.word-detective.com/111097.html. (spl)