Etymology

oak

O1A1K5

Today it means: A deciduous tree with distinctive deeply lobed leaves, acorns, and notably strong wood, typically of England and northeastern North America, included in genus Quercus. Full definition →

Middle English ake ← Old English aac ← Proto-West Germanic *aik
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*h₂eyǵ-“oak”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*aiks“oak”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*aik
  4. Old English · inherited fromaac
  5. Middle English · inherited fromake
  6. English todayoak

Inherited from Middle English ake, hok, oek, ok, oke, from Old English aac, āc, ǣċ, from Proto-West Germanic *aik, from Proto-Germanic *aiks (“oak”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyǵ- (“oak”). Cognates From Proto-Germanic: Scots aik, ake, yik (“oak”), North Frisian iake, iik (“oak”), Saterland Frisian Eeke (“oak”), West Frisian iik (“oak”), Cimbrian aicha, oach (“oak”), Dutch eik (“oak”), German Eiche (“oak”), Luxembourgish Eech (“oak”), Vilamovian aach, aeh́, ǡh́ (“oak”), Danish eg (“oak”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk eik (“oak”), Norwegian Bokmål eik, ek (“oak”), Swedish ek (“oak”). From Proto-Indo-European: Latin aesculus (“Italian oak”), Ancient Greek αἰγίλωψ (aigílōps, “Turkey oak”), Albanian enjë (“English yew; stinking juniper”), Latvian ozols (“oak”), Lithuanian ąžuolas (“oak”).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishake all →

Ackroyd

Proto-Indo-European*h₂eyǵ- all →

aegis

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.