The story
- Proto-Germanic · inherited from*alinabugô“elbow”
- Old English · inherited fromelboga
- Middle English · inherited fromelbowe“elbow”
- 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.