Etymology

sight

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Today it means: The sense or faculty by which objects are perceived through the agency of light; the sense by which we see. Full definition →

Middle English sighte ← Old English sihþ ← Proto-West Germanic *sihti
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sekʷ-
  2. Proto-Germanic*sehwaną
  3. Proto-West Germanic*sehwan
  4. Proto-West Germanic*sihti
  5. Old Englishsihþ
  6. Middle Englishsighte
  7. English todaysight

From Middle English sighte, from Old English sihþ (“something seen; vision”), from Proto-West Germanic *sihti (“seeing, sight”), equivalent to see + -t. Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian gazicht (“sight, vision; pupil”), Dutch gezicht (“face; sight, vision”), zicht (“sight, vision”), German Gesicht (“face; sight, vision”), Sicht (“view; sight; visibility”), Luxembourgish Gesiicht (“face”), Siicht (“view; sight”), Yiddish געזיכט (gezikht, “face”), Danish sigt (“sight; visibility”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sikt (“visibility”), Swedish sikt (“visibility”), sikte (“sight”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.