The story
- Latin · derived fromcomitātus“jurisdiction of a count”
- Old French · derived fromconté
- Anglo-Norman · derived fromcounté
- Middle English · inherited fromcountee
- English todaycounty
From Middle English countee, counte, conte, from Anglo-Norman counté, Old French conté (French comté), from Latin comitātus (“jurisdiction of a count”), from comes (“count, earl”). Cognate with Spanish condado (“county”) and Italian contea (“county”). Doublet of comitatus, borrowed directly from Latin. Mostly displaced native Old English sċīr, whence Modern English shire.
Words from the same roots
Latincomitātus all →
comitatus
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.