beer

English 'beer' comes from Middle English 'ber, bere', from Old English 'bēor', which the OED calls rare outside poetry, from Proto-West Germanic '*beuʀ', from Proto-Germanic '*beuzą', meaning 'brewer's yeast'. Some sources instead trace it through monastic Vulgar Latin '*biber' ('a drink, beverage'), from Latin 'bibere' ('to drink'); Samuel Johnson, writing in the 1700s, guessed at an unattested Welsh '*bîr'.

Johnson's dictionary distinguished 'beer' from the older, more common word 'ale', describing beer as aged longer and weaker in strength — a distinction that no longer holds today.

It shares its root with Dutch 'bier', German 'Bier', West Frisian 'bier', and Icelandic 'bjór', all descending from the same Germanic word for the yeasty drink.