huge

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kewk-
2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kowkós“hill, mound”
3. Proto-Germanic · derived from*haugaz“hill, mound”
4. Old Norse · derived fromhaugr“hill”
5. Frankish · derived from*haug
6. Old French · derived fromahuge“high, lofty, great, large, huge”
7. Middle English · inherited fromhuge
8. English todayhuge

From Middle English huge, from Old French ahuge (“high, lofty, great, large, huge”), of unknown origin. One theory derives it from an underlying Old French a hoge (“at height”), from a (“at, to”) + hoge (“a hill, height”), the latter from Frankish *haug or cognate Old Norse haugr (“hill”); both from Proto-Germanic *haugaz (“hill, mound”), from Proto-Indo-European *kowkós (“hill, mound”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *kewk-, whence also English high.

Words from the same roots