Etymology

whistle

whist·le
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Today it means: A device designed to be placed in the mouth and blown, or driven by steam or some other mechanism, to make a whistling sound. Full definition →

Middle English whistel ← Old English hwistle
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whistle · noun1

  1. Old English · inherited fromhwistle
  2. Middle English · inherited fromwhistel
  3. English todaywhistle

From Middle English whistel, whistil, whistle, from Old English hwistle, from the verb (see below).

whistle · verb2

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*hwistlōną“to make a hissing sound”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*hwistlōn
  3. Old English · inherited fromhwistlan
  4. Middle English · inherited fromwhistlen
  5. English todaywhistle

From Middle English whistlen, from Old English hwistlan, hwistlian (“to whistle”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwistlōn, from Proto-Germanic *hwistlōną (“to make a hissing sound”). Cognate with Swedish vissla (“to whistle”), Icelandic hvísla (“to whisper”), Russian свистеть (svistetʹ, “to whistle”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.