Etymology

sloven

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Today it means: A habitually dirty or untidy man or boy; the male equivalent of slattern, or slut. Full definition →

Middle English sloveyn ← Middle Dutch sloef ← Proto-Germanic *slup-
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The story

  1. Latin · derived from-ānus
  2. Old French · derived from-ain
  3. Proto-Germanic · derived from*slup-
  4. Middle Dutch · derived fromsloef“untidy, shabby”
  5. Middle English · inherited fromsloveyn
  6. English todaysloven

From Middle English sloveyn, from Middle Flemish sloovin (“a scold”). Related to Middle Dutch sloef (“untidy, shabby”), from Proto-Germanic *slup- + Old French -ain, from Latin -ānus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.