The story
- Middle English · inherited fromgnasten
- English todaygnash
From Middle English gnasten. Origin unknown; the word is probably either Germanic or ultimately onomatopoeic. Compare Old Norse gnastan, Danish gnaske ("munch", "crunch"), German knirschen, German Low German gnirschen, gnörschen (“gnash”), Swedish gnissla (“squeak; gnash”), all of onomatopoeic origin.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishgnasten all →
gnast
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.