Etymology

harp

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Today it means: A musical instrument consisting of a body and a curved neck, strung with strings of varying length that are stroked or plucked with the fingers and are vertical to the soundboard when viewed from the end of the body Full definition →

Middle English harpe ← Old English hearpe ← Proto-West Germanic *harpā
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*harpǭ“harp”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*harpā
  3. Old English · inherited fromhearpe“harp”
  4. Middle English · inherited fromharpe
  5. English todayharp

From Middle English harpe, from Old English hearpe (“harp”), from Proto-West Germanic *harpā, from Proto-Germanic *harpǭ (“harp”). Cognate with Scots hairp (“harp”), West Frisian harpe, harp (“harp”), Low German Harp (“harp”), Dutch harp (“harp”), German Harfe (“harp”), Danish harpe (“harp”), Swedish harpa (“harp”).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishharpe all →

harpe

Old Englishhearpe all →

Harpham

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.