The story
- Proto-Germanic · derived from*walhahnuts
- Old English · inherited fromwealhhnutu“walnut”
- Middle English · inherited fromwalnote
- English todaywalnut
From Middle English walnote, walnutte, walnotte, from Old English wealhhnutu (“walnut”, literally “foreign nut”), from Proto-Germanic *walhahnuts (literally “foreigner-nut”). Cognate with Dutch walnoot, German Walnuss, Swedish valnöt, Icelandic valhneta. Compare more recent term Welsh onion, which also uses Welsh to mean “foreign”.
Words from the same roots
Old Englishwealhhnutu all →
welshnut
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.