Etymology

elbow

el·bow
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Today it means: The joint between the upper arm and the forearm. Full definition →

Middle English elbowe ← Old English elboga ← Proto-Germanic *alinabugô
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*alinabugô“elbow”
  2. Old English · inherited fromelboga
  3. Middle English · inherited fromelbowe“elbow”
  4. English todayelbow

From Middle English elbowe (“elbow”), from Old English elboga, elnboga (“elbow”), from Proto-Germanic *alinabugô (“elbow”), equivalent to ell + bow. Cognate with Scots elbuck (“elbow”), Saterland Frisian Älbooge (“elbow”), Dutch elleboog (“elbow”), Low German Ellebage (“elbow”), German Ellbogen, Ellenbogen (“elbow”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål albue (“elbow”), Norwegian Nynorsk olboge (“elbow”), Faroese albogi, Icelandic olbogi, olnbogi (“elbow”), Swedish armbåge (“elbow”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.