Etymology

undeserved

U1N1D2E1S1E1R1V4E1D2

Today it means: Not deserved, earned or merited; unjustifiable or unfair. Full definition →

English deserved ← Middle English un- ← Old English un-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*né
  2. Proto-Indo-European*n̥-
  3. Proto-Germanic*un-
  4. Proto-West Germanic*un-
  5. Old Englishun-
  6. Middle Englishun-
  7. Englishun-
  8. Englishdeserved
  9. English todayundeserved

From un- + deserved.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.