Etymology

hat

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Today it means: A covering for the head, often in the approximate form of a cone, dome or cylinder closed at its top end, and sometimes having a brim and other decoration. Full definition →

Middle English hat ← Old English hætt ← Proto-Germanic *hattuz
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kedʰ-“to guard, cover, care for, protect”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*hattuz“hat”
  3. Old English · inherited fromhætt
  4. Middle English · inherited fromhat
  5. English todayhat

From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian and Danish hat (“hat”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood. Verb sense 4 derives from a common English Wikipedia template used to collapse disruptive discussions, {{Hidden archive top}}, abbreviated as {{hat}}.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.