Etymology

heretog

H4E1R1E1T1O1G2

Today it means: The leader or commander of an army in Saxon times. Full definition →

Middle English heretogh ← Old English heretoga ← Proto-West Germanic *harjatogō
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · derived from*harjatogō
  2. Old English · derived fromheretoga
  3. Middle English · derived fromheretogh
  4. English todayheretog

From Middle English heretogh, heretoȝe, from Old English heretoga, heretoha (“commander, general”), from Proto-West Germanic *harjatogō, equivalent to here (“army”) + tog. Doublet of heretoga (borrowed from Old English) and herzog (borrowed from the German cognate Herzog (“duke”)). The form likely did not naturally survive in daily use (an expected descendant from dialect may be *heretow), but was revived by scholars.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishheretoga all →

heretoga

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.