take

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*te-th₂g-“to touch, take”
2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*tēkaną“to touch”
3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*takan“to take; grasp, touch”
4. Old Norse · derived fromtaka“to touch, take”
5. North Germanic · derived from
6. Old English · inherited fromtacan“to grasp, touch”
7. Middle English · inherited fromtaken“to take, lay hold of, grasp, strike”
8. English todaytake

From Middle English taken (“to take, lay hold of, grasp, strike”), from Old English tacan (“to grasp, touch”), probably of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse taka (“to touch, take”). Alternatively, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *takan (“to take; grasp, touch”). Both from Proto-Germanic *tēkaną (“to touch”), from pre-Germanic *deh₁g- (“to touch”), possibly a phonetically altered form of Proto-Indo-European *te-th₂g- (“to touch, take”) (see there for details). Gradually displaced native English nim, from Middle English nimen, from Old English niman (“to take”). Cognates Cognate with Scots tak (“to take”), Icelandic and Norwegian Nynorsk taka (“to take”), Norwegian Bokmål ta (“to take”), Swedish ta (“to take”), Danish tage (“to take, seize”), West Frisian take, taakje (“to grab, steal”), Dutch taken (“to take; grasp”), Middle Low German tacken (“to grasp”). English thack may be from the same root. Compare tackle. Despite superficial similarity, unrelated to Proto-Indo-European *tek- (“to take by hand, obtain”), which is instead cognate with English thig (“to beg”).

Words from the same roots