Etymology

damage

dam·age
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Today it means: Injury or harm; the condition or measure of something not being intact. Full definition →

Middle English damage ← Old French damage ← Vulgar Latin *damnāticum
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromscath
  2. Latin · derived fromdamnum
  3. Vulgar Latin · derived from*damnāticum
  4. Old French · derived fromdamage
  5. Middle English · inherited fromdamage
  6. English todaydamage

From Middle English damage, from Old French damage, from Vulgar Latin *damnāticum from Classical Latin damnum. Compare modern French dommage. Largely displaced native Middle English scath (whence unscathed). Cognate with Spanish daño, Portuguese dano, Italian danno, French dam, Romanian daună.

Words from the same roots

Latindamnum all →

damnum

Middle Englishscath all →

scathe

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.