Etymology

bind

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Today it means: To tie; to confine by any ligature. Full definition →

Middle English bynden ← Old English bindan ← Proto-West Germanic *bindan
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*bʰendʰ-
  2. Proto-Germanic*bindaną
  3. Proto-West Germanic*bindan
  4. Old Englishbindan
  5. Middle Englishbynden
  6. English todaybind

From Middle English bynden, from Old English bindan, from Proto-West Germanic *bindan, from Proto-Germanic *bindaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰéndʰ-e-ti, from *bʰendʰ- (“to tie”). See also West Frisian bine, Dutch binden, Low German binnen, binden, German binden, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk binde, Faroese, Icelandic, and Swedish binda; also Welsh ben (“cart”), Latin offendīx (“knot, band”), Lithuanian beñdras (“partner”), Albanian bind (“to convince, to awe, to spell”), Ancient Greek πεῖσμα (peîsma, “cable, rope”), Persian بستن (bastan, “to bind”), Sanskrit बन्धति (bándhati). Doublet of bandana.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.