English
Gateshead
Gateshead comes from Middle English Gatesheved.
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500Gatesheved
- Englishearliest quotation 1830Gateshead
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500Gatesheved
- Englishearliest quotation 1830Gateshead
Earliest quotation: 1830, John Yelloly, Sequel to a Paper on the Tendency to Calculous Diseases: “Of this number, 64 belonged to the above district,…”
The story
First mentioned by Bede in Latin in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae (literally “at the goat's head”), meaning a headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats. Both Latin and English names may be calques of a Brythonic predecessor formed from Proto-Brythonic *gaβr, from Proto-Celtic *gabros (‘goat’), and might have been the Romano-British fort of Gabrosentum.
Every English word from Middle English Gatesheved
Today it means
name A town in Tyne and Wear, in north-east England, found upon the southern bank of the Tyne (OS grid ref NZ2562).
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle English Gatesheved / Gateshead