The story
- Old Norse · derived frommyrkna“to darken”
- Middle English · inherited frommirkenen
- English todaymirken
From Middle English mirkenen, merknen, from Old Norse myrkna (“to darken”). Cognate with Icelandic myrkna (“to darken”), Swedish mörkna (“to get dark, darken”), Danish mørkne (“to darken”), equivalent to mirk + -en. More at murk.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishmirkenen all →
murken
Old Norsemyrkna all →
mirkningmurken
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.