Etymology

dough

D2O1U1G2H4

Today it means: A thick, malleable substance made by mixing flour with other ingredients such as water, eggs, or butter, that is made into a particular form and then baked. Full definition →

Middle English dogh ← Old English dāg ← Proto-West Germanic *daig
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeyǵʰ-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰóyǵʰos
  3. Proto-Germanic*daigaz
  4. Proto-West Germanic*daig
  5. Old Englishdāg
  6. Middle Englishdogh
  7. English todaydough

From Middle English dow, dogh, dagh, from Old English dāg, from Proto-Germanic *daigaz (“dough”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to knead, form, mold”). Cognate with Scots daich, dauch, doach (“dough”), North Frisian dii, Jai (“dough”), West Frisian daai (“dough”), Dutch deeg (“dough”), German Teig (“dough”), Low German and Luxembourgish Deeg (“dough”), Vilamovian taag (“dough”), Yiddish טייג (teyg, “dough”), Danish dej (“dough”), Faroese deiggj (“dough”), Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk deig (“dough”), Swedish deg (“dough”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌹𐌲𐍃 (daigs, “dough”). The derivation of the second meaning (of money) is obscure, but dates to the mid 19th century.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishdāg all →

spotted dick

Proto-Indo-European*dʰeyǵʰ- all →

figurefaintdey

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.