The story
- Old Norse · derived fromsœmiligr“seemly”
- Middle English · inherited fromsemly
- English todayseemly
From Middle English semly, semely, semelich, from Old Norse sœmiligr (“seemly”); equivalent to seem + -ly. Cognate with Icelandic sæmilegur (“seemly, passable”), Danish sømmelig (“seemly”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.