Etymology

touse

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Today it means: To rumple, tousle. Full definition →

Middle English tousen ← Old English *tūsian ← Proto-West Germanic *tūsōn
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*tūsōn
  2. Old English · inherited from*tūsian
  3. Middle English · inherited fromtousen
  4. English todaytouse

From Middle English tousen, tusen, from Old English *tūsian, from Proto-West Germanic *tūsōn. Cognate with German zausen (“to tousle”). Related also to English tease and toase. (a noisy disturbance): Compare typologically Russian раздра́й (razdráj) (<… драть (dratʹ)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.