Etymology

taken

tak·en
T1A1K5E1N1

Today it means: Infatuated; fond of or attracted to. Full definition →

Middle English taken ← Old English tacen ← Old Norse tekinn
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*tēkaną“to take; grasp; touch”
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*tēkanaz
  3. Old Norse · derived fromtekinn
  4. Old English · inherited fromtacen
  5. Middle English · inherited fromtaken
  6. English todaytaken

From Middle English taken, takenn, from Old English tacen, *ġetacen, from Old Norse tekinn, from Proto-Germanic *tēkanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *tēkaną (“to take; grasp; touch”). Cognate with Scots takin, tane, Danish tagen, Swedish tagen, Icelandic tekin. Morphologically take + -n.

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishtaken all →

take

Proto-Germanic*tēkaną all →

take

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.