Etymograph

English

film

Film comes from Old English filmen ‘membrane, thin skin’, from Proto-Germanic *filmīn-, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pél-mo- ‘membrane’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pél-mo-‘membrane’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*filmīn-‘thin skin, membrane’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*filmīn-reconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150filmen‘film, membrane, thin skin’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500filme‘film’
  6. Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1595film

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pél-mo-‘membrane’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*filmīn-‘thin skin, membrane’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*filmīn-reconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150filmen‘film, membrane, thin skin’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500filme‘film’
  6. Englishearliest quotation c. 1591–1595film

Earliest quotation: c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet: “Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film.”

The story

Related also to Dutch vel (‘sheet, skin’), German Fell (‘skin, hide, fur’), Swedish fjäll (‘fur blanket, cloth, scale’), Norwegian fille (‘rag, cloth’), Lithuanian plėvē (‘membrane, scab’), Russian плева́ (plevá, “membrane”), Ancient Greek πέλμα (pélma, “sole of the foot”). Sense of a thin coat of something is 1577, extended by 1845 to the coating of chemical gel on photographic plates. By 1895 this also meant the coating plus the paper or celluloid.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *pel-

felt, simple, simply, push, powder, complain, fold, pulse, repeal, filter, pillow, flaw, pollen, palate, compulsive, expel, repel, palpable, palladium, propel, palatable, pall, pelt, wallow, peloton, polemic, tuple, pollinate, palatal, muffle, apoplexy, peplum, pulver, palp, interpolate, pillion, 63 more

Today it means

noun A thin layer of some substance; a pellicle; a membranous covering, causing opacity.

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

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *pél-mo- / film

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