Etymology

thresh

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Today it means: To separate the grain from the straw or husks (chaff) by mechanical beating, with a flail or machinery, or by driving animals over them. Full definition →

Middle English threschen ← Old English þerscan ← Proto-Germanic *þreskaną
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*terh₁-“to rub, turn; to drill, pierce”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*þreskaną“to thresh; to tread”
  3. Old English · inherited fromþerscan
  4. Middle English · inherited fromthreschen
  5. English todaythresh

From Middle English threschen, thresche, threschyn, threshen, thresshen, tressyn, þreisshe, þresshe, from Old English þerscan, þrexan, from Proto-Germanic *þreskaną (“to thresh; to tread”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, turn; to drill, pierce”). Doublet of thrash. Cognates Cognate with Dutch dorsen (“to thresh; to thrash”), German and Luxembourgish dreschen (“to thresh; to thrash”), Yiddish דרעשן (dreshn, “to thresh”), Danish tærske (“to thresh”), Faroese treskja (“to thresh”), Icelandic þreskja (“to thresh”), Norwegian Nynorsk treska, treske, treskja, treskje (“to thrash”), Swedish tröska (“to thresh”), Gothic 𐌸𐍂𐌹𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌽 (þriskan, “to thresh”), Finnish rehkiä (“to drudge; to toil”); also Welsh taradr (“auger, wimble; awl, borer; drill”), Latin terō (“to rub or triturate; to wear away or wear out, consume; to tread; to press with a mill; to pass, spend”), Greek τρίβω (trívo, “to grate; to rub”), Albanian tjerr (“to spin”), Belarusian це́рці (cjérci, “to rub; to polish; to pinch; to grind”), Bulgarian три́я (tríja, “to rub; to chafe; to grind”), Czech třít (“to rub; to spawn”), Polish tarć, treć, trzeć, trzyć (“to rub; to shred; to cut; to chafe; to crush; to spawn”), Russian тере́ть (terétʹ, “to rub; to polish; to grind”), Serbo-Croatian тр̏ти, tȑti (“to rub; to cause friction; to scour; to break, crush”), Slovak trieť (“to rub”), Slovene treti (“to crack open; to rub”), Ukrainian те́рти (térty, “to rub; to scrub”), Armenian թուր (tʻur, “sword”), Sogdian ܕܣܦܪܛܪ (dsprtr, “hand towel”), Hittite 𒋻𒌑𒍣 (tar-ú-zi, “to perform a round dance, to dance in twisting manner”), Tocharian A and Tocharian B tärk- (“to allow, let; to let go”), Sanskrit तर्कु (tarku, “spindle”).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishthreschen all →

Old Englishþerscan all →

Proto-Germanic*þreskaną all →

Proto-Indo-European*terh₁- all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.