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agate

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Etymology and origin of the English word agate

agate1 stone

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1483 Caxton's translation of Cato
Borrowed from
Old French agate
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek ἀχάτης

Pronunciation

  • /ˈæɡ.ɪt/, /ˈæɡ.ət/[1]

Etymology

The word for the stone is borrowed from Old French agate, also agathe, the Anglo-Norman and Middle French forms,[2][3][4][5] from Latin achātēs,[2][6][7][8] from Ancient Greek ἀχάτης (akhátēs), of unknown origin and perhaps itself a loanword.[2][8][3] Pliny derived the name from the river Achates in Sicily, where the stone was found,[2][3][6][9][10] but the OED, Frisk (cited by Barnhart and Klein) and Etymonline think the river was more likely named after the stone.[2][3][8][6] The g of the French, Italian and Medieval Latin forms is hard to explain; it may come from association with Ancient Greek ἀγαθός (agathós, “good”).[2][7] Old French had acate as well,[3][11][7] and the Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the early 12th century, already named a banded precious stone.[12] English had borrowed the Anglo-Norman and Latin word earlier as achate, recorded from about 1225 in the “Ancrene Riwle”.[2][6] The OED compares Catalan àgata, Spanish ágata, Italian agata, Middle Dutch agaet and Old High German agat.[2][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Jet: about 1483, in Caxton's translation of Cato, of a black stone that drives away snakes when burned, a rare and long obsolete sense.[2] The banded stone itself is recorded before 1500, in a Middle English lapidary.[2] Etymonline dates agate to the 1560s, Barnhart to 1570,[6][3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 15th century.[5]

Semantic evolution

Shakespeare used agate for a very small person, after the tiny figures cut in agates for seals: the OED's one quotation is from Much Ado about Nothing (1600).[2][4][6] Green dates the same use to about 1597, in Henry IV, Part 2.[14] Etymonline sees the same idea of smallness in the printers' agate, the American name for the type size called ruby in Britain, which the OED records from 1831.[6][2] Tools followed in the 18th century: a piece of agate set in a holder for burnishing gold, from 1728.[2][15] Children's marbles of agate or of glass made to look like it are recorded from 1886 in the OED, from 1843 in Etymonline,[2][6] and gave the colloquial aggie.[6] In Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Middlesex and Somerset an agate was the best kind of playing marble, of coloured glass.[16] Johnson (1755) classed it as "a precious stone of the lowest class".[17]

Timeline

  • c. 1483 – jet (obsolete by 1661).[2]
  • before 1500 – the banded variety of chalcedony.[2]
  • 1597 – adjective, of or like agate.[5]
  • 1600 – a very small person (obsolete).[2][4]
  • 1728 – a burnishing tool set with agate.[2]
  • 1831 – a size of printing type (North American).[2] Etymonline dates it to 1838.[6]
  • 1886 – a playing marble of agate or of glass like it.[2] Etymonline dates it to 1843.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hard, fine-grained variety of chalcedony, a form of quartz, with bands or clouds of colour, used as a gemstone and for ornaments: a ring set with a polished agate.[18][5][15][2]
  2. A playing marble made of agate or of glass that looks like it.[18][15][2]
  3. A tool with agate parts, such as a burnisher tipped with agate.[15][2]
  4. (printing) A size of type of about 5½ points, called ruby in Britain.[18][15][2]
  5. (obsolete) A very small person.[5][2][4]

Adjective

  1. Of or like agate, especially in colour: her agate eyes.[5][2]

Word family

  • agatelike
  • agateware
  • agatize
  • moss agate
  • agate line

agate2 on the way

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1440 Sir Perceval
Ultimate origin
Old Norse gata
Etymology tree of agate2
inherited borrowed derived
English gate
English agate
From the same root · agate2
English gateway ← gate

Pronunciation

  • /əˈɡeɪt/[1]

Etymology

The word for "on the way" is formed from English a- + gate, with the preposition a, on, and gate in its old sense of "way, road",[2][4][5][8][11] at first written apart, a gate and on gate.[2][19][5] That gate is from Old Norse gata (“road”),[2][20] and is not the same as the gate of a fence, from Old English.[2][6] The OED compares agateward, and its northern form ogate shows the first part remade after on.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Directly, at once: about 1440, in Sir Perceval, a sense recorded only there and now obsolete.[2][19]

Semantic evolution

From about 1450 it meant "on the way, on the road", and so "going, in motion, busy".[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates its first sense to 1554.[5] It has become a Scottish and northern English word:[2][4] Wright found it in Scotland and in all the northern counties down to Lincolnshire, with forms such as agait, agyet and ageat, meaning on the way, astir, about, going on, and with phrases such as to get agate, to get started.[16] In Scots and the Lake District it could also mean "away, astray", and in Durham, the Isle of Man and Lincolnshire "busy, at work on".[16] Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds the dialect sense "amiss, wrong".[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1440 – directly, immediately (obsolete).[2][19]
  • c. 1450 – on the way, on the road; going, in motion.[2]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. (Scotland and northern England) On the way; going, in motion, astir: The bairns were agate before dawn.[2][4][5][16]
  2. (dialect) Busy, at work on something.[16]
  3. (obsolete) Directly, at once.[2][19]

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 q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  16. ^ a b c d e 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)
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  19. ^ a b c d 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)
  20. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster

Related etymologies

  • rotten · also from Old Norse
  • kindle · also from Old Norse
  • awe · also from Old Norse
  • scar · also from Old Norse
  • crawl · also from Old Norse
  • skate · also from Old Norse
  • troll · also from Old Norse
  • thrive · also from Old Norse
Cite this entry

“Agate.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/agate. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·