English
threadbare
Threadbare comes from Old English þrǣd ‘thread’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- ‘to drill, pierce’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*terh₁-‘to drill, pierce’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*þrēduz‘thread’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150þrǣd‘thread’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500thred-bar
- Englishearliest quotation a. 1530threadbare
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*terh₁-‘to drill, pierce’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*þrēduz‘thread’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150þrǣd‘thread’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500thred-bar
- Englishearliest quotation a. 1530threadbare
Earliest quotation: a. 1530, John Skelton, Magnyfycence, a Goodly Interlude and a Mery, […]: “Welth and wyt, I say, be so threde bare…”
Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- ‘rub’
Proto-Indo-European *treh₁-tu-s
Proto-Germanic *þrēduz ‘thread’
Old English þrǣd
Middle English thred
English thread
Proto-Indo-European *bʰosós ‘bare, barefoot’
Proto-Germanic *bazaz ‘bare, naked’
Proto-West Germanic *baʀ ‘bare, naked’
Old English bær ‘bare, naked, open’
Middle English bare ‘unclothed’
English bare
The story
The English word is analysable as thread + bare.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- ‘to drill, pierce’
turn, tournament, throw, tragic, trout, threshold, detrimental, tyrone, detriment, detour, attrition, tourney, triage, trite, thrash, termite, tribulation, detritus, tourniquet, truant, tyro, derma, thresher, thresh, 41 more
Today it means
adj Of cloth, clothing, furnishings, etc.: frayed and worn to an extent that the nap is damaged and the warp and weft threads show; shabby, worn-out.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- / threadbare