Etymology

perhaps

per·haps
P3E1R1H4A1P3S1

Today it means: Possibly. Full definition →

Middle English perhappous ← Old Norse happ ← Proto-Germanic *hampą
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*per-der.?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*pér
  3. Proto-Italic*per
  4. Latinper
  5. Old Frenchpar
  6. Middle Englishper-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*kob-
  8. Proto-Germanic*hampą
  9. Old Norsehapp
  10. Middle Englishhap
  11. Middle Englishperhap
  12. Middle Englishperhappes
  13. Middle Englishperhap
  14. Middle Englishperhappous
  15. English todayperhaps

From Middle English perhappes, perhappous, variant of earlier perhap (“perhaps, possibly”), equivalent to per- + hap (“chance, coincidence”) + -s, on model of Middle English parchaunce (modern perchance).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishparchaunce all →

perchance

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.