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Etymology and origin of the English word asp

English has two words spelled asp: an old name of the aspen tree, inherited from Old English, and the snake, borrowed from Latin and Greek.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɑːsp/, /æsp/[4]
  • US: /æsp/[4]

asp1 aspen tree

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 700 Épinal Glossary
Inherited from
Old English æspe via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *aspō

Etymology

The aspen tree is inherited from Middle English aspe, also apse and espe,[5][6] inherited from Old English æspe, also æps and æpse,[3][2][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *aspō.[2][9][10] It is cognate with Old High German aspa, German Espe, Old Norse ǫsp, Swedish asp, Danish asp, Norwegian asp and Dutch esp.[2][3][11] Barnhart relates it further to Latvian apse and Old Prussian abse, from an Indo-European base Proto-Indo-European *apsā, the Germanic forms having reversed the order of the two consonants.[2][9] Hoad and Dictionary.com note that the vowel of the modern German word comes from an adjective.[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The aspen, Populus tremula: about 700, in the Épinal Glossary.[3][2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to before the 12th century.[1]

Semantic evolution

The word has been used of the wood of the tree since 1551, in William Turner's Herball.[3] It was gradually replaced by aspen,[11] and the Shorter Oxford marks asp as archaic, though a form aps long survived in dialect;[8] Barnhart calls it poetic.[2] Johnson (1755) simply referred the reader to aspen.[13] The English Dialect Dictionary recorded asp and esp for the aspen in Ireland and in English dialects from Northumberland and Cumberland to Wiltshire and Somerset.[14]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – the aspen tree, in the Épinal Glossary.[3][2]
  • 1551 – the wood of the aspen.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (archaic) The aspen tree.[1][8][2]
  2. (archaic) The wood of the aspen.[3][8]

asp2 snake

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1340 Ayenbite
Borrowed from
Latin aspis
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek ἀσπίς
Etymology tree of asp2
inherited borrowed derived
Ancient Greek ἀσπίς
Latin aspis
English asp
The journey of asp2

Etymology

The snake is borrowed from Latin aspis,[3][2][1][15] itself or through aspe,[16][8][11][17] from Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspís), genitive ἀσπίδος (aspídos).[3][18][16] The Greek word also meant a round shield, and the snake was probably named for its hood.[16][12] Its further origin is unknown: Etymonline quotes Beekes as finding no convincing proposal,[16] while Klein thought it probably came from a Hebrew word for a basilisk.[18] The Latin form aspis was used in English from the 14th to the early 16th century,[2][8][3] and Dictionary.com takes asp as a back-formation from it, the ending having been mistaken for a plural.[12] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the second half of the 12th century.[19] The form aspic, used by Shakespeare in “Antony and Cleopatra”, is from French aspic, which Weekley explains as an alteration of the Provençal form.[20]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small venomous hooded snake of Egypt, the Egyptian cobra: 1340, in the Ayenbite.[3] Etymonline dates aspis and aspide to the mid-14th century and the short form asp to the 1520s,[16] and Barnhart finds asp first in Tyndale's translation of the Bible (1526).[2]

Semantic evolution

The asp is above all the snake of Egypt: Collins identifies it, probably as the Egyptian cobra, with the snake that killed Cleopatra and that the Pharaohs used as a symbol of their power over life and death.[21] The name was later given to the vipers of Europe,[16] and since 1710, in Swift, to a small southern European viper, Vipera aspis, and to venomous snakes in general.[3][8] In the United States it is also a name for the puss caterpillar, the stinging larva of the flannel moth.[1]

Timeline

  • 1340 – the Egyptian cobra, a small venomous snake.[3]
  • 1526 – the short form asp, in Tyndale's translation of the Bible.[2][16]
  • 1710 – a southern European viper; also any venomous snake.[3][8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small venomous snake of Egypt, usually identified with the Egyptian cobra.[1][3][21]
  2. A small viper of southern Europe, Vipera aspis.[3][21][8]
  3. Loosely or in poetry, any venomous snake.[8][3]
  4. The puss caterpillar.[1]

Word family

  • aspish

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  11. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  17. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  18. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  19. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  20. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  21. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

  • eldest · also from Old English
  • scrub · also from Old English
  • shale · also from Old English
  • midway · also from Old English
  • ale · also from Old English
  • pike · also from Old English
  • strand · also from Old English
  • staple · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Asp.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/asp. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·