Etymology

birch

B3I1R1C3H4

Today it means: Any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Full definition →

Middle English birche ← Old English birċe ← Proto-West Germanic *birkijā
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*bʰerHǵos
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*birkijǭ
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*birkijā
  4. Old English · inherited frombirċe
  5. Middle English · inherited frombirche
  6. English todaybirch

PIE word *bʰerHǵós From Middle English birche, birk, from Old English birċe, bierċe, from Proto-West Germanic *birkijā, from Proto-Germanic *birkijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵos. Cognates Compare West Frisian bjirk, German Birke, variant of *berkō (compare Dutch berk, Danish birk, Swedish björk, Norwegian bjørk), Sanskrit भूर्ज (bhūrjá), Lithuanian béržas, Czech bříza, Ossetian бӕрз (bærz), Russian берёза (berjóza)), Latin fraxinus (“ash tree, ash javelin”), Albanian bredh.

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishbirche all →

Burch

Old Englishbirċe all →

BurchfieldBriscoBirchallbircherBirchleyBirchmore

Proto-West Germanic*birkijā all →

Burch

Proto-Germanic*birkijǭ all →

Burch

Proto-Indo-European*bʰerHǵos all →

bark

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.