Etymology

shipmate

S1H4I1P3M3A1T1E1

Today it means: A fellow sailor serving on the same ship as another. Full definition →

English mate ← Middle English mate ← Middle Low German mate
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sek-?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*skey-der.?
  3. Proto-Germanic*skipą
  4. Proto-West Germanic*skip
  5. Old Englishscip
  6. Middle Englishschip
  7. Englishship
  8. Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
  9. Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
  10. Proto-Germanic*ga-
  11. Proto-Germanic*matiz
  12. Proto-Germanic*matjô
  13. Proto-West Germanic*gamatjô
  14. Old Saxongimato
  15. Middle Low Germanmate
  16. Middle Englishmate
  17. Englishmate
  18. English todayshipmate

From ship + -mate.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.