Etymograph

English

moor

Moor comes from Old English mōr ‘marsh, wilderness, moor’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *móri ‘sea’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*móri‘sea’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*mōraz‘marsh, moor’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mōrreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150mōr‘marsh, wilderness, moor’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500mor
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1609moor

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*móri‘sea’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*mōraz‘marsh, moor’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mōrreconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150mōr‘marsh, wilderness, moor’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500mor
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1609moor

Earliest quotation: 1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall: “the ruins yet resting in the wild moors”.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *mer- ‘sea, lake, wetland’

remember, murder, nightmare, maritime, submarine, mortality, mara, immortal, muller, mortal, mortar, mariner, morbid, ambrosia, marshy, mortuary, marinara, mort, morn, moribund, cormorant, 57 more

through Proto-Indo-European *móri ‘sea’

march, marine, mere, marsh, mare, marinate, maar, 17 more

Another origin of moor

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*mey-‘to build’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*moyro-reconstructed
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*mairiją‘mooring post, post, boundary’reconstructed
  4. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mairī‘mooring post’reconstructed
  5. Proto-West Germanic, derivedc. 200–500 CE*mairōn‘to moor, fasten to’reconstructed
  6. Old Englishc. 450–1150*mārianreconstructed
  7. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500moren
  8. Englishtodaymoor

Today it means

noun An extensive waste covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light (and usually acidic) soil, but sometimes marshy, and abounding in peat; a heath. (Compare bog, peatland, marsh, swamp, fen.)

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

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *móri / moor

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