Etymology

smelt

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Today it means: Any small anadromous fish of the family Osmeridae, found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and in lakes in North America and northern part of Europe. Full definition →

Middle English smelt ← Old English smelt ← Proto-West Germanic *smelt
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smelt · noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European*(s)meld-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*(s)méldeti
  3. Proto-Germanic*smeltaną
  4. Proto-Germanic*smeltaz
  5. Proto-West Germanic*smelt
  6. Old Englishsmelt
  7. Middle Englishsmelt
  8. English todaysmelt

From Middle English smelt, from Old English smelt, from Proto-West Germanic *smelt, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaz.

smelt · verb2

  1. Middle English · inherited fromsmelte
  2. English todaysmelt

From very early Middle English smelte; likely to derive from Old English, but not recorded.

smelt · noun, verb3

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*smeltaną“to melt”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · derived from*smeltan
  3. Old Saxon · derived fromsmeltan
  4. Old Dutch · derived from*smeltan
  5. Middle Low German · derived fromsmelten“to melt”
  6. Middle Dutch · derived fromsmelten“to melt”
  7. English todaysmelt

From Middle Dutch smelten (“to melt”) or Middle Low German smelten (“to melt”), from Old Dutch *smeltan or Old Saxon smeltan, both from Proto-West Germanic *smeltan, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaną (“to melt”). Related to English melt and Old English meltan (“to melt”). Cognate to Dutch smelten, German schmelzen.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*smeltaną all →

enamelsmalt

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.