bulk

The story

1. Middle English · derived frombouk“belly, trunk”
2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*bʰelǵ-“beam, pile, prop”
3. Proto-Germanic · derived from*bulkô“beam, pile, heap”
4. Old Norse · derived frombúlki“the freight or the cargo of a ship”
5. Middle English · inherited frombulk
6. English todaybulk

From Middle English bulk, bolke (“a heap, cargo, hold; heap; bulge”), borrowed from Old Norse búlki (“the freight or the cargo of a ship”), from Proto-Germanic *bulkô (“beam, pile, heap”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“beam, pile, prop”). Compare Icelandic búlkast (“to be bulky”), Swedish dialectal bulk (“a bunch”), Danish bulk (“bump, knob”). Conflated with Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk”).

Words from the same roots