The story
- Old French · derived frompreserver
- Middle English · inherited frompreserven
- English todaypreserve
From Middle English preserven, from Old French preserver, from Medieval Latin prēservāre (“keep, preserve”), from Late Latin praeservāre (“guard beforehand”), from prae (“before”, adverb) + servāre (“maintain, keep”). Displaced native Old English nerian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.