Etymology

foal

F4O1A1L1

Today it means: A young horse or similar young equine, especially just after birth or less than a year old. Full definition →

Middle English ffoole ← Old English fola ← Proto-West Germanic *folō
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*pōlH-“animal young”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*fulô“foal”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*folō
  4. Old English · inherited fromfola
  5. Middle English · inherited fromffoole
  6. English todayfoal

From Middle English ffoole, foale, fole, fool, foole, fowle, from Old English fola, from Proto-West Germanic *folō, from Proto-Germanic *fulô (“foal”), from pre-Germanic *pl̥Hon-, from Proto-Indo-European *pōlH- (“animal young”). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Foole (“foal”), West Frisian fôle (“foal”), Dutch veulen (“foal”), German Fohlen, Füllen (“foal”), Low German Fohl (“foal”), Vilamovian fyłn (“foal”), Danish føl (“foal”), Faroese fyl (“foal”), Icelandic foli, fyl (“foal”), Norwegian Bokmål fole, føll (“foal”), Norwegian Nynorsk fole, fyl, føl (“foal”), Swedish fåle, föl (“foal”); compare also Latin pullus (“young animal”), Greek πουλάρι (poulári, “foal”), Albanian pelë (“mare”), Armenian ուլ (ul, “kid, young of a goat”). Related to filly.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*pōlH- all →

pollera

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.