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bumblebee

BUHM-buhl-bee · noun

Middle EnglishEnglish

Origin

The word arose in the 1520s from bumble + bee, replacing the earlier Middle English humbul-be. It had already merged, in the late 14th century, with Middle English bombeln, meaning "to boom, buzz."

Journey

Its earliest English form, humbul-be, gave way in the 1500s to the bumble + bee combination we use now, with the buzzing sense of bombeln folded in along the way.

Related words

Curiously, the name of the drink called a bumblebee is a semantic loan from Ukrainian джміль (džmilʹ), a separate borrowing layered onto the same word.

More words

From Middle English

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