Etymology

geyser

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Today it means: A boiling natural spring which throws forth jets of water, mud, etc., at frequent intervals, driven upwards by the expansive power of steam. Full definition →

Icelandic Geysir ← Old Norse geysa ← Proto-Germanic *gausijaną
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ǵʰew-der.?
  2. Proto-Germanic*geusaną
  3. Proto-Germanic*gausijaną
  4. Old Norsegeysa
  5. Icelandicgeysa
  6. IcelandicGeysir
  7. English todaygeyser

From Icelandic Geysir (“Gusher”), the Icelandic name of a particular hot spring in Iceland (see Wikipedia), from the verb geysa (“to gush”), from Old Norse geysa (“to gush”), which is mentioned in English as early as the 1760s in The Annual Register, as “Geyser, a wonderful spring in the valley of Haukadal”. Doublet of gusher

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.