Etymology

stream

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Today it means: A small river; a large creek; a body of moving water confined by banks. Full definition →

Middle English strem ← Old English strēam ← Proto-West Germanic *straum
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ser-?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*srew-
  3. Proto-Indo-European*srow-mo-s
  4. Proto-Germanic*straumaz
  5. Proto-West Germanic*straum
  6. Old Englishstrēam
  7. Middle Englishstrem
  8. English todaystream

From Middle English streem, strem, from Old English strēam, from Proto-West Germanic *straum, from Proto-Germanic *straumaz (“stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *srowmos (“river”), from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow”). Doublet of rheum. Cognate with Scots strem, streme, streym (“stream, river”), North Frisian Stroom, struum (“stream”), West Frisian stream (“stream”), Low German Stroom (“stream”), Dutch stroom (“current, flow, stream”), German Strom (“current, stream”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål strøm (“current, stream, flow”), Norwegian Nynorsk straum (“current, stream, flow”), Swedish ström (“current, stream, flow”), Faroese streymur (“stream”), Icelandic straumur (“current, stream, torrent, flood”), Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “stream, flow”), Lithuanian srovė (“current, stream”) Polish strumień (“stream”), Welsh ffrwd (“stream, current”), Scottish Gaelic sruth (“stream”).

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*srew- all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.