The story
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂ep
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂epó
- Proto-Germanic*ab
- Proto-West Germanic*ab
- Old Englishæf
- Old Englishof
- Middle Englishof
- English todayoff
From Middle English of, from Old English of, af, æf (“from, off, away”), from Proto-West Germanic *ab, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“from”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“from, off, back”). Doublet of of. Cognates Cognate with Scots aff (“away, off”), Saterland Frisian oawe, ou (“from”), West Frisian ôf (“away, off”), Dutch af (“from, off”), German ab (“from, off”), German Low German, Luxembourgish of (“off”), Yiddish אָפּ (op, “off”), Danish, Icelandic af (“from, off”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk av (“off”), Swedish af, av (“off”), Gothic 𐌰𐍆 (af, “of, from”); and with Latin ab (“of, from, by”), Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “from”), and others.
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishof all →
Old Englishof all →
Proto-West Germanic*ab all →
Proto-Germanic*ab all →
Proto-Indo-European*h₂epo all →
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.