Etymology

otter

O1T1T1E1R1

Today it means: An aquatic or marine carnivorous mammal in the subfamily Lutrinae. Full definition →

Middle English oter ← Old English otor ← Proto-West Germanic *otr
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otter · noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*wed-“water”
  2. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*udrós“aquatic, water-animal”
  3. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*utraz
  4. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*otr
  5. Old English · inherited fromotor
  6. Middle English · inherited fromoter
  7. English todayotter

From Middle English oter, otir, otur, otyre, from Old English otor, from Proto-West Germanic *otr, from Proto-Germanic *utraz, from Proto-Indo-European *udrós (“aquatic, water-animal”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“water”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Otter, Dutch otter, German Otter, Swedish utter, Norwegian oter, Icelandic otur, Sanskrit उद्र (udrá), Russian вы́дра (výdra), and Ancient Greek ὕδρα (húdra, “water snake”). Doublet of Hydra and hydra. More etymology under English water.

otter · noun2

Corruption of annotto.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*wed- all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.