Etymology

steeple

S1T1E1E1P3L1E1

Today it means: A tall tower, often on a church, normally topped with a spire. Full definition →

Middle English stepel ← Old English stīpel ← Proto-West Germanic *staupil
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*staupilaz“that which is steep, tower, steeple”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*staupil
  3. Old English · inherited fromstīpel
  4. Middle English · inherited fromstepel
  5. English todaysteeple

From Middle English stepel, from Old English stīpel, stȳpel, stīepel (“tower, steeple”), from Proto-West Germanic *staupil, from Proto-Germanic *staupilaz (“that which is steep, tower, steeple”), equivalent to steep + -le. Cognate with Old Norse stǫpull (“tower, steeple”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.