Etymology

greenfinch

G2R1E1E1N1F4I1N1C3H4

Today it means: Any bird within the genus Chloris (formerly a subset of the genus Carduelis), small passerine songbirds with yellow-green plumage, found throughout Eurasia. Full definition →

English finch ← Middle English fynch ← Old English finċ
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*gʰreh₁-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*gróh₁nis
  3. Proto-Germanic*grōniz
  4. Proto-West Germanic*grōnī
  5. Old Englishgrēne
  6. Middle Englishgrene
  7. Englishgreen
  8. Proto-Indo-European*(s)ping-
  9. Proto-Indo-European*(s)píngis
  10. Proto-Germanic*finkiz
  11. Proto-Indo-European*(s)ping-
  12. Proto-Germanic*finkô
  13. Old Englishfinċ
  14. Middle Englishfynch
  15. Englishfinch
  16. English todaygreenfinch

Compound of green + finch. Cognate with Alemannic German Grüefink, Dutch groenvink, German Grünfink, Icelandic grænfinka, North Frisian greenfink, Norwegian Bokmål grønnfink, Norwegian Nynorsk grønfink, Swedish grönfink, and West Frisian grienfink.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.