distaff

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*stebʰ-
2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*stabaz“staff, stick”
3. Old English · derived fromdistæf“distaff”
4. Middle English · derived fromdistaf“distaff”
5. English todaydistaff

From Middle English distaf (“distaff”), from Old English distæf (“distaff”), from *dis- (“bunch of flax”) (cognate with Middle Low German dise (“bunch of flax on a distaff”)) + stæf (“staff”) (from Proto-Germanic *stabaz (“staff, stick”), from Proto-Indo-European *stebʰ-). Senses 3 and 5 (“anything traditionally done by or considered of importance to women only”; “a woman, or women considered as a group”) refer to the fact that spinning was traditionally done by women.

Words from the same roots