English
mortar
Mortar comes from Latin mortārium.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmortārium
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400mortier
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500morter‘a mortar’
- Englishearliest quotation 1846mortar
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmortārium
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400mortier
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500morter‘a mortar’
- Englishearliest quotation 1846mortar
Earliest quotation: 1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fire Worship: “The holy hearth! If any earthly and material thing,…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *mer- ‘to die’
remember, march, murder, marine, mere, nightmare, maritime, marsh, mare, muller, mara, immortal, morbid, moor, ambrosia, morn, marinate, marinara, mortuary, moribund, maar, cormorant, mortification, mortician, 60 more
through Old French mortier
Today it means
noun A mixture of lime or cement, sand and water used for bonding building blocks.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin mortārium / mortar