Etymograph

English

lode

Lode comes from Old English lād ‘way, course, journey’, from Proto-Germanic *laidō ‘a leading’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *loyt-éh₂-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*loyt-éh₂-reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*laidō‘a leading’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*laidureconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150lād‘way, course, journey’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1967lode

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*loyt-éh₂-reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*laidō‘a leading’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*laidureconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150lād‘way, course, journey’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1967lode

Earliest quotation: 1967, Henry C. Berg, Edward Huntington Cobb: “The metals traditionally sought in the Bristol Bay region…”

The story

The now-archaic lode continues the old sense of Old English lād (‘way, course, journey’) but by the 19th century survived only dialectally in the sense of “watercourse”, as a technical term in mining, and in the compounds lodestone, lodestar.

Every English word from Proto-Indo-European *loyt-éh₂-

Today it means

noun A way or path; a road.

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

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *loyt-éh₂- / lode

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