Words from Old English

Family

Languages that grew out of Old English: Middle English.

The words, A to Z

• acre

  A unit of land that still carries the memory of an open, unfenced field.

• ale

  This drink's name may hide an ancient word for bitterness itself.

• anthem

  A song that started out meaning voices answering each other across a church.

• ape

  A word so old, nobody's fully sure which continent it came from.

• apple

  The world's most famous forbidden fruit didn't earn its name from the Bible at all — that was a Latin pun.

• badger

  This animal is basically named for wearing its own name tag.

• band

  The thing holding your favorite musicians together shares a root with the thing holding your shoelaces together.

• bear

  The animal's name may actually be a nervous euphemism — a way of not saying its real, older name out loud.

• bee

  This tiny buzzing word has been almost exactly the same sound for thousands of years.

• beer

  The word for the drink you might toast with was once just the name for the yeast that fermented it.

• beetle

  This crawling insect's name literally means "the biter."

• bench

  A humble piece of furniture that's been holding people up since Old English times.

• bid

  This little word carries two ghosts inside it — one that begs and one that offers.

• bird

  The word for our feathered friends once meant only the ones too young to fly.

• bishop

  A church official whose title once just meant someone keeping watch from above.

• bladder

  The word for that stretchy internal balloon has been describing swellings and blisters for over a thousand years.

• bone

  The hard framework inside you shares an old root with the idea of going straight.

• brain

  The word for the thing you're thinking with has been sitting quietly in Germanic mouths for over a thousand years.

• bread

  The staple food on every table got its name from a word that once meant nothing more than a broken crumb.

• bridge

  A word for spanning gaps that itself has roots stretching back to a Proto-Indo-European word for wooden decking.

• camel

  A word that crossed deserts and languages long before it crossed into English.

• candle

  A small flame owes its name to the Latin word for glowing white.

• canon

  The rule you measure everything else against started life as a humble reed.

• cat

  The word for the animal curled up on your couch has traveled father than the animal itself ever needed to.

• cheek

  The part of your face that started out just meaning your jaw.

• cherry

  This small, sweet fruit's name got doubled up by a mistake in translation.

• chicken

  This barnyard word may simply be 'cock' dressed up with a diminutive ending.

• church

  The word for the building started out meaning nothing more than 'belonging to the boss.'

• clam

  A word that once meant a tight grip has ended up naming everything from a dollar bill to a soul in a shell.

• cloud

  The word for the sky's soft drifting shapes started out describing something as solid as a boulder.

• clue

  A ball of thread that became, through a Greek myth, the word for finding your way.

• cod

  A small, humble word that once meant nothing more than a bag — and somehow ended up naming a fish, a pillow, and a fool.

• cogwheel

  A simple compound that literally names the toothed wheel doing the work.

• colt

  A young horse's name once described a shape, not a species.

• copper

  This reddish metal carries the name of an island that supplied the ancient world with it.

• corn

  This word for a hard little seed once meant almost any grain at all, before one country decided it meant just one.

• cove

  A small sheltered bay shares its name with a shed and, oddly, with slang for a guy — three separate roads that all somehow led to the same little word.

• crab

  That sideways scuttle across the sand has been scratching at English for over a thousand years.

• curse

  Even the word for a spoken ill wish has a hidden history — one nobody has ever solved.

• daisy

  This flower carries its own tiny clock, folding shut when the sun goes down.

• deer

  The word for this graceful woodland animal once meant simply 'animal' — any animal at all.

• devil

  The word for the devil started out as a courtroom insult meaning someone who throws accusations at you.

• dictator

  The word for an absolute ruler was once just a job title for someone whose job was to talk.

• disciple

  Before it meant a devoted follower, this word simply meant someone who was learning.

• dish

  The plate on your table and the word for a table used to be the same thing.

• dog

  The word for our best friend is one of English's great etymological mysteries.

• dough

  The slang for money in your pocket comes from the same root as the stuff rising in your bread bowl.

• doughnut

  A pastry named for two things it once literally was — dough, shaped like a nut.

• drawer

  The box you slide open for socks got its name from the simple act of pulling.

• dribble

  This word for a slow trickle is really the same drop, said over and over.

• drowsy

  This word for heavy-eyed sleepiness actually showed up before the verb it supposedly came from.

• dungeon

  The word for a castle's darkest cell once meant the exact opposite: its tallest, proudest tower.

• dusk

  That soft, smoky hour before full dark started out as a word for the color of soot itself.

• earn

  Before it meant getting paid, this word meant bringing in the crops.

• earring

  Sometimes a word's history is as plain as the object it names — this one just is what it says.

• earth

  The ground beneath your feet carries a name older than plowing itself.

• earthquake

  Sometimes the ground just needs to shiver, and English gave it a plain, honest name for that.

• eyebrow

  The little arch above your eye once pointed to a very different part of your face.

• fan

  The thing you wave to cool your face once helped separate wheat from chaff.

• fee

  Long before you paid one, this word grazed in a field.

• fender

  Something that fends off harm turns out to just be a job title in disguise.

• ferry

  The word for a boat that shuttles you across water was once just a verb meaning to carry.

• fertilizer

  The 'one who does it' ending turns a verb for making things fruitful into the name of the stuff that does the work.

• finch

  A tiny songbird whose name may echo the sound of its own chirp.

• fork

  The utensil on your table shares a name with a device once used for something far grimmer.

• fortnight

  Two weeks used to be counted in nights, not days.

• fox

  This clever little word may once have simply meant 'the tailed one.'

• gangway

  A shout on the docks that's really just an old word for 'path' asking you to move.

• gild

  To make something shine on the outside, whether or not it shines within.

• ginger

  This spicy root's name is itself rooted in the word for 'root.'

• girdle

  The band that once held everything together, from waist to word.

• glade

  A word for the sunlit gap in the trees carries brightness right in its bones.

• glove

  This word for hand covering literally means something like 'the thing that goes with the palm.'

• goat

  This barnyard word carries a much racier secondary meaning that comes straight from a common slang phrase.

• goose

  A humble barnyard bird carries one of the oldest sound-shapes in the Indo-European family.

• ham

  The cut of meat on your sandwich once meant nothing more than the crook of your leg.

• hare

  This quick-footed animal may owe its name to the color of its coat, not its speed.

• harp

  This stringed instrument has been called almost the same name across the Germanic world for over a thousand years.

• hat

  The thing on your head may descend from an ancient root meaning simply 'to guard.'

• hawthorn

  This spiky hedge tree's name is basically its job description, stitched together in Old English.

• heath

  A stretch of open, untamed land that gave its name to the wild shrub growing across it.

• hedgehog

  A pig that lives in the shrubbery — at least, that's what its name literally claims.

• heel

  The part of your foot you stand on was once, literally, a 'little hock.'

• hip

  The word for the joint you swivel on has roots that literally mean 'to bend.'

• hollow

  The empty space inside something once shared a root with the idea of concealment.

• hope

  A small word for the feeling of wanting good things to come — and it's been doing that job for over a thousand years.

• hornet

  This stinging insect's name traces back to a word for the thing on its head that isn't actually a horn at all.

• horse

  The animal we've ridden for millennia carries a name that literally means "runner."

• hound

  The word that once meant every dog alive, now saved for the ones bred to chase.

• hover

  That trembling stillness in the air — a bird stalled between beats — carries a memory of lifting.

• hut

  A tiny shelter's name traces back to the idea of covering yourself from the world.

• hymn

  A song of praise carries a name that's been sung since ancient Greece.

• iceberg

  English didn't invent this word so much as borrow half of it and translate the other half.

• inch

  This tiny unit of measure shares a secret family tree with a unit of weight.

• income

  Long before it meant a paycheck, this word simply meant something arriving.

• iron

  A metal so old its name may still carry the memory of blood.

• kelp

  This seaweed's name may trace back to the air-filled lumps that keep it floating.

• kettle

  A word for a humble boiling vessel that's been passed hand to hand across half of Europe's languages.

• kiln

  The oven that fires pottery got its name from something much cozier: a kitchen.

• knife

  This everyday cutting tool got its name from a pinch, not a slice.

• landscape

  A word that once meant nothing more than a stretch of land found its true calling once painters picked up a brush.

• latch

  The little mechanism that catches a door was once a verb meaning to grab hold of something with your whole hand.

• laughter

  That burst of sound you can't fake convincingly started out as a word for shouting.

• leaf

  The thin green thing on a tree carries an old memory of being cut away.

• leap

  This word for jumping once just meant putting one foot in front of the other.

• liver

  The body's great chemical factory carries a name that once meant something altogether stickier.

• loafer

  Someone who lingers a little too long doing nothing at all.

• lock

  The thing that keeps your door shut and the curl in your hair share the same ancient root — one about bending, the other about closing.

• louse

  A tiny, unwelcome word that's been crawling through Germanic languages for thousands of years.

• love

  The tennis score of nothing and the deepest human attachment share the same four letters, though not, it turns out, the same story.

• market

  A word for buying and selling that traces back to the simple idea of goods themselves.

• marsh

  A soggy patch of land that's basically calling itself 'sea-ish.'

• marten

  This small woodland hunter's name actually started out describing the coat on its back, not the animal itself.

• martyr

  Before it meant someone who dies for a cause, this word just meant someone who saw something.

• meal

  Before it meant food on a plate, this word simply meant a fixed point in time.

• mermaid

  She's simply a maid of the sea, once you strip away the myth.

• mince

  To turn something into smaller and smaller pieces, whether it's meat or your words.

• mint

  The coin in your pocket and the leaf in your tea share a name by pure coincidence, not by fate.

• mirth

  The feeling of a good laugh once had nothing to do with joy at all — it was about how fast time flies.

• mist

  That soft grey haze hanging over a field has been called almost the same thing for over a thousand years.

• month

  Every time you flip the calendar, you're quietly counting moons.

• moor

  A word for wild, open land that once meant something like 'sea' in disguise.

• moth

  The word for the moon's paper-winged cousin has been quietly gnawing at fabric and language alike for over a thousand years.

• mould

  One little word secretly holds three unrelated pasts — a shape, a soft growth, and the earth itself.

• mouth

  The word you're reading with right now traces back to the simple act of chewing.

• mulberry

  This dark, dripping fruit's name is a little linguistic tangle of Latin and Germanic roots.

• mussel

  This shelled sea-dweller shares its name with something that once looked like a scurrying rodent to Roman eyes.

• nail

  Your fingertips carry a word that stretches back through Old English straight to a Proto-Indo-European root for the hard tip of a finger or claw.

• nave

  This little word hides two totally unrelated pasts under one spelling.

• nightingale

  A bird whose name literally announces what it does after dark.

• nose

  The part of your face that got its name from a word so old it's practically prehistoric.

• oat

  The grain in your morning bowl once shared its name with pus and poison.

• orchard

  A patch of fruit trees carries a name that once simply meant a fenced-in place for plants.

• overcome

  To get past something, you first have to get on top of it — literally.

• overwhelm

  A word for being flooded by something bigger than you can hold, built from 'over' plus a much older word for capsizing.

• owl

  This bird's name is basically a tiny echo of its own cry, shrunk down over centuries.

• ox

  A word for a beast of burden that also moonlights as a chemistry-lab shorthand.

• pail

  A humble bucket whose name may trace back to a peg or a pan, depending on which story you believe.

• patch

  A small word for a small piece of cloth, with an origin nobody can quite pin down.

• peacock

  This bird's name is really two words wearing one feather coat — a foreign import glued to a very plain English chicken.

• pelican

  This big-billed bird's name traces back to a tool for chopping wood.

• pepper

  A tiny berry from India traveled through Greek and Latin mouths before landing on your dinner table.

• pharaoh

  This royal title started out as a description of a building, not a person.

• phoenix

  A bird of endless renewal that began, oddly enough, as a real wading bird on the Nile.

• pilgrim

  A word for someone on a journey once simply meant someone from somewhere else.

• pine

  One little word hides both a tree and a heartache.

• pitch

  One little word carries both sticky tar and a thrown baseball — and they don't share a root at all.

• plum

  This juicy fruit's name traveled from Anatolia through Greek and Latin before landing softly in English.

• port

  The word for a harbor and the word for a ship's left side share the same old root for 'crossing.'

• pride

  The feeling of standing tall traces straight back to the word for standing tall itself.

• prison

  A place you're put when someone else does the grabbing.

• propeller

  The thing that pushes a ship or plane forward is, quite literally, named for its job of pushing.

• puzzle

  Before it meant a brain-teaser, this word may have meant picking out only the best bits of something.

• rainbow

  The sky's most colorful trick got named for the plainest thing about it: the shape.

• raincoat

  Some words are just two useful things zipped together, and this is one of them.

• rake

  The garden tool with a row of teeth shares its deep roots with the idea of a road or a path.

• rash

  The word for acting too fast may come from a root that literally means "to run."

• rattlesnake

  This snake's name literally tells you what to listen for before you see it.

• reef

  A ridge that once meant your ribs before it meant the ocean's.

• rib

  The curve of your chest bone owes its name to an ancient word for arching cover.

• riddle

  A word for a puzzle that once simply meant advice.

• rudder

  The thing that steers your boat was once just a word for the oar that did the job.

• sail

  A single Old English word once meant both the cloth and the act of moving by it.

• saint

  This word carries the weight of being set apart, made sacred, at its very root.

• sandstone

  Sometimes a word means exactly what it says, and that's its own quiet kind of satisfying.

• sap

  The word for tree juice once meant simply "taste" — and it still drips with that ancient sense.

• scorpion

  This word has been skittering through languages, largely unchanged, for over two thousand years.

• scuba

  The gear you strap on before diving was born as a bureaucratic string of words, squeezed down to fit on a tank.

• scurvy

  A word for flaky, scabby skin ended up naming a disease that sailors dreaded.

• seed

  The word for what you plant carries, underneath it, the ancient act of sowing itself.

• shareholder

  Someone who holds a piece of something that's been cut up for others too.

• shelf

  A flat board with a name that once meant something you'd cut or carve, not build.

• shield

  A piece of wood or metal that keeps you whole traces back to a word for cutting things apart.

• shin

  The front of your lower leg carries a name that's been walking through Germanic languages for over a thousand years.

• shire

  The word behind Yorkshire and Hobbiton both points back to a plot of land that answered to someone in charge.

• shirt

  The garment on your back was once just anything short enough to be cut off.

• shovel

  This tool for moving dirt is literally named after the motion you make with it.

• shrub

  This little word hides two unrelated lives — one rooted in the ground, one poured into a glass.

• sidewalk

  Sometimes a word is exactly as literal as it looks, and there's a quiet satisfaction in that.

• sieve

  This kitchen tool's name once meant simply 'to let things run through.'

• silk

  This word traveled so far along ancient trade routes that its true starting point got lost somewhere along the way.

• silt

  The fine mud a river leaves behind may share its roots with the sea that seasons your food.

• sin

  The word for wrongdoing once meant the opposite — being caught telling the truth.

• sinew

  The tough cord that connects muscle to bone shares its root with the very word for nerve.

• sledge

  A word for a heavy hammer somehow ended up describing trash talk on a cricket pitch.

• sloth

  Before it named a slow-moving animal, this word was just a quality — the state of being unhurried to a fault.

• sluggish

  This word for moving like a slow, heavy creature is built quite literally out of one.

• snow

  The word for the white stuff falling from the sky has been drifting through Germanic languages for thousands of years, barely changing shape.

• sock

  The humble foot-covering has been traveling under wraps since ancient Greece.

• soil

  This word for earth actually grew out of a scribe's mix-up between two similar-looking Latin words.

• sorrow

  A word for grief that once meant simply keeping watch over a worry.

• sow

  This barnyard word for a female pig may share deep roots with the very word "swine."

• spade

  The digging tool and the card suit share a name, but they dug their way into English from two very different directions.

• spell

  The word for magic words and the word for arranging letters both grew from the same old habit of telling a tale.

• spire

  The tapering tip of a church tower shares its ancestry with a humble blade of grass.

• spoon

  Before it scooped soup, this word meant a sliver of wood split from a log.

• starling

  This speckled bird's name literally means 'little star.'

• steel

  This tough metal's name comes from an old Germanic word that simply meant 'staying firm.'

• strawberry

  This fruit's name may come from the humble bits of stalk it either grows on or gets threaded onto.

• street

  Every road you call a street was, at its root, just something that got flattened out.

• summer

  The word for the warmest season may once have simply meant 'half the year.'

• swallow

  The bird and the gulp share a spelling but not a single drop of ancestry.

• swan

  The elegant white bird's name is actually a description of its voice, not its looks.

• swine

  A word that's carried the pigsty into the language of insults for over a thousand years.

• table

  The flat surface you eat dinner on was once just a word for any board or plank.

• tawdry

  A saint's name, worn down by centuries of pilgrims and market stalls, until it meant cheap.

• teach

  To teach someone is, at its root, simply to show them something.

• temple

  The word for a sacred building once meant simply the sky-space a Roman priest marked out for reading omens.

• thicket

  This word is basically "thick" with a little suffix stuck on to make it a place.

• thimble

  The little metal cap on your sewing table is, quite literally, a tiny house for your thumb.

• thistle

  This prickly weed's name comes from the same ancient root as the word for jabbing something sharp.

• thorn

  A tiny word for a sharp point carries a much older idea of stiffness itself.

• thrush

  A small speckled songbird lent its name to two very different things, and nobody's quite sure why the second one borrowed it.

• thunder

  The booming sky-sound that also gave a Norse god his name.

• Thursday

  This day of the week carries a rumble of thunder hidden in its name.

• tie

  A simple loop of cord carries a much older pull inside it — the urge to draw things together.

• tinder

  The dry stuff that waits for a single spark to become fire.

• tithe

  This word for a tenth-part offering carries its own math right in its bones.

• toad

  This bumpy little word has been hopping through English since before English was even called that.

• tomorrow

  The day that hasn't come yet is, at its root, just another word for morning.

• tool

  The word for the thing in your hand once meant the act of getting ready to use it.

• treacle

  This sticky, sweet word once meant something you'd want on hand for a snakebite, not a scone.

• tusk

  That long, curving tooth an elephant or walrus flaunts started out as just a plain old word for tooth.

• twig

  A tiny branch that quietly carries the ancient number two inside it.

• walnut

  The nut that English named not for its shell, but for the strangers who brought it.

• warehouse

  Sometimes the most useful words are the ones built from the simplest possible parts.

• weapon

  A word so old that even its own root is a mystery.

• Wednesday

  The middle of the week carries a Norse god disguised as a Roman one.

• wheat

  The grain that fills our bread got its name from a color, not a taste.

• wine

  This word for fermented grape drink has been passed hand to hand across Europe for thousands of years without changing its core sound.

• winsome

  There's a hidden 'joy' tucked inside this word for someone charming.

• wire

  Before it carried electricity, this word carried the idea of a twist.

• wisdom

  The state of being wise is, quite literally, built from the word 'wise' itself.

• witch

  A word for those who set things apart may itself have been set apart, born from a root meaning to consecrate or separate.

• womb

  Before it meant the place life begins, this word just meant your belly.

• wool

  This soft word has been keeping people warm in language for thousands of years, all the way back to a root shared with hair itself.

• worship

  This word literally means the state of having worth.

• wrestle

  To grapple with someone is, at its root, to twist them.

• yard

  The patch of ground behind your house was once, at its root, simply something fenced in.