Etymograph

English

body

Body comes from Old English bodiġ ‘body, trunk, chest, torso, height, stature’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- ‘to be awake, observe’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰewdʰ-‘to be awake’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*bodag‘body’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150bodiġ‘body’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500body
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰewdʰ-‘to be awake’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*bodag‘body’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150bodiġ‘body’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500body
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596same form

Earliest quotation: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame: “And as imagination bodies forth / The forms of…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- ‘to be awake, observe’

bid, bede, beadle, abode, bode, verboten, 3 more

Today it means

noun The physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- / body

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