ale

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ale,^[2][3] inherited from Old English ealu, also alu,^{[3][4][2][5][6]} inherited from Proto-West Germanic *alu, inherited from Proto-Germanic *alu;^[1] Barnhart, Etymonline and Ayto give the Germanic stem as *aluth-.^[4][7][8] It is cognate with Old Saxon alo (only in a compound), Middle Dutch āle, Old Norse ǫl, Swedish öl and Danish øl, all meaning beer.^[5][4][9] Of the Germanic languages, only English keeps both ale and beer: the Scandinavian languages have only words related to ale, and the others only words related to beer.^[9][8] The relation of Old Prussian alu (“mead”) and Lithuanian alus (“beer”) to the Germanic forms is uncertain;^[5] Etymonline and Klein take the Baltic and Slavic words as loans from Germanic,^[7][10] and Finnish olut is usually taken as a loan from Germanic or Baltic.^[5] Older dictionaries compared Latin alūmen (“alum”) and set up an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *alu- (“bitter”),^[10][4][2] a view the OED rejects as impossible on phonological grounds.^[5] Watkins derives it from *alu- with connotations of sorcery, magic and intoxication,^[7][3] and Bjorvand, cited by the OED, from the same base as alder, as a reddish-golden or pale drink.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

An intoxicating drink brewed from malt: early Old English, in Bald's Leechbook;^[5] Barnhart dates the word to about 940.^[4] Old English glosses render it with Latin words for beer and fermented drink, such as Latin cervēsia.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Until hops were grown in England in the first half of the 15th century, ale and beer meant the same thing.^[4] From then until the 17th century ale was the native unhopped malt liquor and beer the hopped drink brought from the Low Countries; by the 18th century all malt liquor was hopped, and beer tended to be the town word and ale the country word.^[7] The word formerly referred especially to the paler kinds of beer,^[11][12] and in British use it can still mean beer in general.^[13] In Cumberland and Somerset dialect, by contrast, ale was a weak beer made from the malt after the beer had been drawn off.^[14] A second sense, a festival at which much ale was drunk, existed in Old English,^[7][5] and survives in bridal, from a bride-ale.^[7][15] Phrases such as to the ale, to the tavern (about 1275), and in one's ale, drunk (about 1450), are now rare or historical.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined ale as a liquor made by steeping malt in hot water and fermenting it.^[16] Today it usually means a beer brewed by top fermentation, often stronger and more bitter than other beers.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 940 – the drink, in Old English.^[4][5]
• 1076 – a festival with ale drinking, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[5]
• c. 1275 – to the ale, to the tavern.^[5]
• before 1387 – at the ale, at a drinking session (obsolete by 1766).^[5]
• c. 1450 – in one's ale, drunk.^[5]
• 1400s – hops reach England, and beer comes to mean the hopped drink.^[4][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A beer brewed by top fermentation, usually fuller in body, more bitter and often stronger than lager; any beer other than lager, stout or porter: a pint of pale ale.^[2][13][5]
2. (chiefly British) Beer in general.^[13][12]
3. (historical) A drink brewed from malt without hops.^[13][12][7]
4. (historical) A country festival at which ale was the main drink.^[2][5]

Word family

• alewife
• cakes and ale
• ginger ale
• pale ale
• Adam's ale
• pot ale
• yard of ale

Related words

• alehouse
• bridal
• beer

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.