Etymology

sunbeam

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Today it means: A ray of sunlight; especially, a demarcated, narrow, and intense (relative to ambient light) ray of sunlight (as revealed by, for example, its diffraction among dust particles). Full definition →

Middle English sonnebem ← Old English sunnbēam
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited fromsunnbēam
  2. Middle English · inherited fromsonnebem
  3. English todaysunbeam

From Middle English sonnebem, sonnebeem, from Old English sunnbēam, sunnebēam (“sunbeam”), equivalent to sun + beam.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.