Etymology

leg

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Today it means: A limb or appendage that an animal uses for support or locomotion on land. Full definition →

Middle English leg ← Old Norse leggr ← Proto-Germanic *lagjaz
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*lagjaz
  2. Old Norse · derived fromleggr“leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromleg
  4. English todayleg

From Middle English leg, legge, from Old Norse leggr (“leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk”), from Proto-Germanic *lagjaz, *lagwijaz (“leg, thigh”) (see it for more). Cognate with Scots leg (“leg”), Icelandic leggur (“leg, limb”), Norwegian Bokmål legg (“leg”), Norwegian Nynorsk legg (“leg”), Swedish lägg (“leg, shank, shaft”), Danish læg (“leg”), Lombardic lagi (“thigh, shank, leg”), Latin lacertus (“limb, arm”), Persian لنگ (leng). Upon borrowing, mostly displaced the native Old English term sċanca (Modern English shank).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.