Etymology

spur

S1P3U1R1

Today it means: A rigid implement, often roughly y-shaped, that is fixed to one's heel for the purpose of prodding a horse. Often worn by, and emblematic of, the cowboy or the knight. Full definition →

Middle English spure ← Old English spora ← Proto-West Germanic *spurō
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

spur · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*sperH-“to kick”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*spurô
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*spurō
  4. Old English · inherited fromspora
  5. Middle English · inherited fromspure
  6. English todayspur

From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spora, spura, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”).

spur · noun2

See sparrow.

spur · noun3

Short for spurious.

Spur · proper noun, noun4

English surname, variant of Spurr. Compare the noun spur.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishspora all →

spoors

Proto-Indo-European*sperH- all →

spearspurn

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.