Etymology

sailing

S1A1I1L1I1N1G2

Today it means: Travelling by ship. Full definition →

Middle English saylinge
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

sailing · verb, adjective1

  1. Middle English · inherited fromsaylinge
  2. English todaysailing

From Middle English saylinge, seilinge, variants of sailende, seilende; equivalent to sail + -ing. Cognate with Dutch zeilend (“sailing”).

sailing · noun2

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*siglingō“sailing”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*siglingu, *seglungu
  3. Old English · inherited fromseġling, seġlung“sailing”
  4. Middle English · inherited fromseyling, sayling
  5. English todaysailing

From Middle English seyling, sayling, from Old English seġling, seġlung (“sailing”), from Proto-West Germanic *siglingu, *seglungu, from Proto-Germanic *siglingō (“sailing”); equivalent to sail + -ing. Cognate with Middle Low German sēgelinge (“sailing”), Swedish segling (“sailing”), Icelandic sigling (“sailing”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.