Etymology

bother

B3O1T1H4E1R1

Today it means: To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for. Full definition →

Scots bauther
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Scots · borrowed frombauther
  2. English todaybother

Borrowed from Scots bauther, bather (“to bother”). Origin unknown. Perhaps related to Scots pother (“to make a stir or commotion, bustle”), also of unknown origin. Compare English pother (“to poke, prod”), variant of potter (“to poke”). More at potter. Perhaps related to Irish bodhaire (“noise”), Irish bodhraim (“to deafen, annoy”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.