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Etymology and origin of the English word Dutch

Pronunciation

Dutch1 of the Netherlands

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1327 a subsidy roll for Badingham, printed in Suffolk in 1327
Borrowed from
Middle Dutch duutsc via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *teutā-

Etymology

The word for the people and language is inherited from Middle English Duche, also Duch,[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle Dutch duutsc, also dudesc and dutsch,[5][6][7][8] which referred to the Low Countries and their language and also meant Germanic or German.[5][8] The OED now thinks the word was probably not inherited but arose in the politics of the Carolingian state, perhaps as late as the second half of the 8th century, as Old High German thiutisc (“of one's own people, vernacular”), from diot (“people”) and the suffix that gave -ish.[5] The earliest evidence for it is Medieval Latin theodiscus, in 786, for the spoken language as against Latin.[5][9] It would then have spread to the neighbouring languages, as Old Frisian thiādisk and Old Saxon thiudisk.[5] The OED adds that Old English þēodisc (“Gentile; language”) may be an independent formation, and it sets apart the much earlier Gothic 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍉 (þiudiskō, “in the manner of the heathen”).[5][10] Older accounts, and Wiktionary, reconstruct Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz (“of one's people”), from *þeudō (“people”),[6][1][7] from Proto-Indo-European *teutā- (“people, tribe”).[5][7][9] Weekley thought the word was coined by the English missionaries under Boniface.[11] The same noun gave Gothic 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰 (þiuda), and it is related to Old Irish túath (“people”), Oscan touto and Latvian tauta (“people”).[5][7][2] The Germanic adjective is also the source of German deutsch, and of Italian tedesco (“German”) through a Lombard form.[10][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Designating the West Germanic languages of the area that is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Low Countries: 1327, in a subsidy roll for Badingham.[5] Barnhart has Duch, of Germany, German, about 1333–52,[10] and Etymonline the late 14th century, for the language.[9] Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes the noun from Trevisa's translation of Higden, with the date 1363.[12]

Semantic evolution

In Germany the adjective first set the vernacular apart from Latin, and it passed from the languages to the people who spoke them.[6][4][9] English first used it for all these peoples, by the mid 15th century separating Higher and Lower Dutch.[9][5][11] From about 1600 the word narrowed towards the Netherlands,[9][11] which had become a united independent state and the focus of English attention and rivalry.[9][8] The Dutch themselves went the other way, and Dutch Duits now means only German.[5][9][7] The old sense lived on in America, helped by German deutsch and by Germans who settled there, as in Pennsylvania Dutch.[5][10][12] Many unflattering phrases, like Dutch courage (1812) and Dutch treat (1887), were put down by the OED to Anglo-Dutch commercial rivalry in the 17th and 18th centuries;[10] Barnhart thinks the later ones are more likely ordinary ethnic jibes or came out of contact in America.[10] Green's Dictionary of Slang records stereotypes of the Dutch as stolid, miserly and bad-tempered from 1672,[12] and Weekley links several phrases to the drinking habits and figures of Hollanders and Germans, or to their unintelligible speech, as in double Dutch.[11] Regional English had combinations such as Dutch barn, a roof set on pillars, and Dutch cheese, the fruit of the dwarf mallow.[13]

Timeline

  • 1327 – designating the West Germanic languages of central and northern Europe.[5]
  • before 1400 – noun, this family of languages.[5]
  • c. 1438 – of the people who spoke these languages, in the Book of Margery Kempe.[5][14]
  • 1548 – noun, plural, the people who spoke them.[5]
  • 1568 – of Holland and the Netherlands.[10] The OED has this from 1592 for products and 1595 for the place and its people.[5]
  • 1638 – of the language of the Netherlands.[5]
  • 1644 – of colonists from the Netherlands in North America.[5]
  • 1654 – having qualities attributed to the Dutch.[5]
  • 1697 – of South Africans of Dutch descent.[5]
  • 1738 – verb, to clarify and harden quills.[5]
  • 1742 – of German-speaking settlers in North America.[5]
  • 1867 – of a meal where each person pays their own share.[5]
  • 1912 – verb, to spoil another person's chances.[12]
  • 1914 – adverb, with each person paying their own way.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of or relating to the Netherlands, its people or their language.[15][2][5]
  2. (chiefly US, colloquial) Of German-speaking settlers in North America and their descendants, especially the Pennsylvania Dutch.[5][10]
  3. (South African) Of South Africans of Dutch descent; of Afrikaners or their language.[5]
  4. (originally US) Of a meal or outing at which each person pays for their own share.[5]
  5. (slang) German.[2][12]
  6. (archaic) Of the Germanic peoples of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Low Countries.[2][5]

Noun

  1. The West Germanic language of most people in the Netherlands and of northern Belgium.[15][2]
  2. the Dutch: the people of the Netherlands.[15][2]
  3. Afrikaans.[2][5]
  4. in Dutch: (slang) in trouble.[15][4]
  5. (US slang) Nonsense, as a short form of double Dutch.[12]
  6. (US slang) Bad temper.[12]
  7. (archaic) Any of the Germanic languages of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Low Countries.[2][5][16]

Adverb

  1. go Dutch: with each person paying their own way: We went Dutch at the cinema.[2][4]

Verb

  1. To clean and harden a quill for use as a pen by plunging it in hot sand; sometimes uncapitalised.[2][5][16]
  2. To place a series of bets so badly that one must expect to lose; sometimes uncapitalised.[2][12]
  3. (US slang) To ruin another person's business, standing or enjoyment out of malice.[12]

Word family

  • Dutchman
  • Pennsylvania Dutch
  • Cape Dutch
  • High Dutch
  • Low Dutch
  • Middle Dutch
  • double Dutch
  • Dutch courage
  • Dutch treat
  • Dutch uncle

Dutch2 wife

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1882 J. F. Mitchell, Jimmy Johnson's Holiday
Ultimate origin
Old French duchesse
Etymology tree of Dutch2
inherited borrowed derived
English duchess
English Dutch

Etymology

The word for a wife is apparently a shortening from English of duchess,[5][6][11][2][8][15] perhaps influenced by Dutch1.[5] A rival account comes from the music-hall singer Albert Chevalier, who said that it stood for “old Dutch clock”, a slang term for a woman (from 1845), as her face resembled the clock's dial.[5][12] Green's Dictionary of Slang considers the origin still debatable.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wife, often in old Dutch: 1882, in J. F. Mitchell's sheet music Jimmy Johnson's Holiday.[5] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English say the late 19th century.[16][8]

Semantic evolution

Chevalier's song My Old Dutch popularized the word,[5][12] although a quotation of 1895 suggests that at least part of his audience connected it with duchess.[5] Collins labels it Cockney,[15] Weekley calls it a coster's word,[11] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged notes that it is used as a term of affection.[2]

Timeline

  • 1882 – a wife, in old Dutch.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (British slang) A person's wife, used affectionately, often in my old Dutch.[2][15][5]

Usage notes

Dictionary.com warns that go Dutch, in Dutch, Dutch courage, Dutch gold and Dutch uncle are sometimes taken as insulting to the Dutch, or by them.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

  • nap · also from Middle Dutch
  • tick · also from Middle Dutch
  • prop · also from Middle Dutch
  • rover · also from Middle Dutch
  • groove · also from Middle Dutch
  • mesh · also from Middle Dutch
  • slack · also from Middle Dutch
  • scum · also from Middle Dutch
Cite this entry

“Dutch.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/Dutch. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·