The story
- German · semantic loan fromnerven
- Latin · derived fromnervus“sinew”
- Medieval Latin · derived fromnervus“nerve”
- Middle English · inherited fromnerve
- English todaynerve
Recorded since circa 1374 as Middle English nerve, from Medieval Latin nervus (“nerve”), from Latin nervus (“sinew”). Doublet of neuron and sinew. Verb sense 4 (“to get on (someone’s) nerves”) is chiefly a semantic loan from German nerven.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishnerve all →
nerue
Medieval Latinnervus all →
nerue
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.