harsh

harsh · adjective, verb¹

1. Proto-West Germanic · derived from*hār
2. Old Saxon · derived fromhār
3. Middle Low German · derived fromharsch“rough”
4. Old Norse · derived fromharskr
5. Middle English · inherited fromharsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris
6. English todayharsh

From Middle English harsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk, Swedish härsken); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch (“rough”, literally “hairy”) (whence also German harsch), from haer (“hair”), from Old Saxon hār, from Proto-West Germanic *hār; the Oxford Dictionary of English derives it from Middle Low German alone.

Harsh · proper noun²

From the German surname, Americanized from Harsch, from the adjective harsch.

Words from the same roots