English
boxing
Boxing comes from English box ‘to punch’, and goes back to Middle English box.
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500box1
- English1500–presentbox1‘to punch’
- Englishearliest quotation 2024boxing1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English boxing
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2024, Timothy Garton Ash: “So Ukraine is on the ropes. Using that boxing…”.
Earlier history not traced here. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500boxWiktionary, English boxing
- English1500–presentboxWiktionary, English boxing‘to punch’
- Englishearliest quotation 2024boxingWiktionary, English boxing. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2024, Timothy Garton Ash: “So Ukraine is on the ropes. Using that boxing…”
A compound of box ‘to punch’ + -ing
Late Latin buxis ‘box’
Proto-West Germanic *buhsā ‘box’
Old English box ‘box, case’
Middle English box ‘container’
English box
Linked words
through Middle English box
through English box ‘to punch’
Today it means
verb A sport where two opponents punch each other with gloved fists to head and torso; the object being to score more points by the end of the match or by knockout, or technical knockout.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle English box / boxing