The story
- Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*wiþistandan“to withstand, resist”
- Old English · inherited fromwiþstandan
- Middle English · inherited fromwithstanden
- English todaywithstand
From Middle English withstanden, from Old English wiþstandan, from Proto-West Germanic *wiþistandan (“to withstand, resist”), equivalent to with- (“against”) + stand. Cognate with Old Frisian withstanda (“to resist”). Compare also Dutch weerstaan (“to withstand, repel”), German widerstehen (“to withstand, resist, defy”), Russian противостоять (protivostojatʹ, “to withstand”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.