Etymology

bumblebee

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Today it means: Any of several species of large bee in the genus Bombus. Full definition →

Middle English humbul-be ← Ukrainian джміль
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The story

  1. Ukrainian · semantic loan fromджміль
  2. Middle English · derived frombombeln“to boom, buzz”
  3. Middle English · derived fromhumbul-be
  4. English todaybumblebee

1520s from bumble + bee, replacing Middle English humbul-be. Merged with Middle English bombeln (“to boom, buzz”), in the late 14th century. The name of the drink is a semantic loan from Ukrainian джміль (džmilʹ).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishhumbul-be all →

humblebee

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.