Etymology

bristle

B3R1I1S1T1L1E1

Today it means: A stiff or coarse hair on a nonhuman mammal or on a plant. Full definition →

First used 16th-early 20th c.Middle English bristil ← Old English bristl ← Proto-West Germanic *burstilu
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*bʰr̥stís
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*burstiz
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*bursti
  4. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*burstilu
  5. Old English · inherited frombristl
  6. Middle English · inherited frombristil
  7. English todaybristle

From Middle English bristil, bristel, brustel, from Old English bristl, byrst, *brystl, *byrstel, from Proto-West Germanic *burstilu, diminutive of Proto-West Germanic *bursti, from Proto-Germanic *burstiz (compare Dutch borstel, German Borste (“boar's bristle”), Icelandic burst), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥stís (compare Middle Irish brostaid (“to goad, spur”), Latin fastīgium (“top”), Polish barszcz (“hogweed”)).

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*burstiz all →

brush

First known use, by meaning

  • from 16th-early 20th c. To make (something) rise or stand erect, like bristles.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.