English

marshmallow

Marshmallow comes from Old English mersċmealwe.

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

Earliest quotation: 1653, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged: “Our common Marsh Mallows have diverse soft, hoary white…”

A compound of marsh + mallow

Proto-Indo-European *móri ‘standing water’

…

Proto-West Germanic *mari ‘sea, lake’

Proto-West Germanic *marisk ‘lake-like, marshy’

Old English mersċ ‘a marsh, bog, or swamp’

Middle English mersch ‘a region of marshland or damp meadowland’

English marsh

Latin malva

Old English mealwe

Middle English malwe

Every English word from Old English mersċmealwe

noun Marsh mallow, a species of mallow, Althaea officinalis, that grows in marshy terrain.

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