Etymology

mare

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Today it means: An adult female horse. Full definition →

Middle English mare ← Old English mearh ← Proto-West Germanic *marh
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mare · noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European*márkos
  2. Proto-Germanic*marhaz
  3. Proto-Germanic*marhijō
  4. Proto-West Germanic*marhijā
  5. Old Englishmiere
  6. Proto-Germanic*marhaz
  7. Proto-West Germanic*marh
  8. Old Englishmearh
  9. Middle Englishmare
  10. English todaymare

From Middle English mare, meare, meir, mer, mere, meyre, mure, from Old English mīere (“female horse, mare”), from Proto-West Germanic *marhijā, from Proto-Germanic *marhijō (“female horse”), from *marhaz (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *márkos (“horse”). Cognates Cognate with Scots mere (“mare”), Saterland Frisian Märe (“mare”), West Frisian merje (“mare”), Dutch merrie (“mare”), German Mähre (“female horse”), Danish mær (“old mare”), Faroese mer (“mare”), Icelandic meri (“mare”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk merr (“mare”), Swedish mæhr, mær, mähr, märr (“mare”); also Breton marc'h (“horse”), Cornish margh (“horse”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic marc (“horse”), Welsh march (“horse”).

mare · noun2

  1. Proto-Indo-European*mer-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*mor-
  3. Proto-Germanic*marǭ
  4. Proto-West Germanic*marā
  5. Old Englishmare
  6. Middle Englishmare
  7. English todaymare

Inherited from Middle English mare, from Old English mare (“nightmare, monster”), from Proto-West Germanic *marā, from Proto-Germanic *marǭ (“nightmare, incubus”), from Proto-Indo-European *mor- (“feminine evil spirit”). Doublet of mara. After becoming obsolete in its original usage, the term was recreated in modern colloquial speech as a clipping of the derived term nightmare. Cognates Akin to Dutch (dial.) mare, German (dial.) Mahr, Old Norse mara ( > Danish mare, Swedish mara (“incubus, nightmare”); also Old Irish Morrígan (“phantom queen”), Albanian merë (“horror”), Polish zmora (“nightmare”), Czech mura (“nightmare, moth”), Greek Μόρα (Móra).

mare · noun3

  1. Latin · borrowed frommare
  2. Latin · borrowed frommare
  3. English todaymare

Borrowed from Latin mare (“sea”), from Proto-Italic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri, possibly from *mer-. Doublet of maar and mere (“a body of standing water”).

mare · noun4

See mayor.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishmīere all →

mire

Proto-Germanic*marǭ all →

mara

Latinmare all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.