Etymologically
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bed

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bed, inherited from Old English bedd (“bed, couch; garden plot”),[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *badja-,[2][3] the source also of Old Saxon bed, Old High German betti, German Bett, Old Norse beðr and Gothic badi.[2][3][5] It may originally have meant “a sleeping place dug in the ground”, from Proto-Indo-European *bhedh- (“to dig, pierce”),[2][6] and Merriam-Webster compares Latin fodere (“to dig”),[7] but Etymonline notes that Boutkan doubts this,[2] and Hoad calls the ultimate origin uncertain.[5] The verb is Old English beddian, from the noun.[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English bedd: about 700.[3] Both the sleeping place and the garden plot are found in Old English,[2][9] and Word Origins suggests the core idea of the word may be “digging”.[9]

Semantic evolution

Bed and board, “in bed and at table”, was an old legal term from the early 13th century for the duties of husband and wife, and since the mid-15th century it has also meant “meals and lodging”.[2] Medieval uses of to make a bed refer to preparing a sleeping place on the floor of a hall.[9] The bottom of a lake, sea or river is a bed from the 1580s,[2] and a layer or stratum in geology from the 1680s.[2] A hospital bed is from 1881,[10] and bed and breakfast from 1910.[10] The verb meant “to provide with a bed” in Old English,[2] “to go to bed” and “to have sex with” from about 1300,[2] and “to lay out land in beds” from 1440.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – a bed.[3]
  • early 13th century – bed and board.[2]
  • c. 1300 – verb, to go to bed; to sleep with.[2]
  • 1440 – to plant in beds.[2]
  • 1580s – the bottom of a body of water.[2]
  • 1680s – a geological stratum.[2]
  • 1910 – bed and breakfast.[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A piece of furniture for sleeping or resting on.
  2. A place to sleep; lodging for the night.
  3. A plot of ground for growing plants.
  4. The bottom of a body of water: a river bed.
  5. A layer of rock; a stratum.
  6. A foundation on which something rests.

Verb

  1. To put to bed or provide with a bed.
  2. To have sex with.
  3. To plant in a bed of soil.
  4. To lay flat or in layers; to embed.

Word family

  • bedless
  • bedlike
  • embed
  • bedding
  • bedroom
  • bedrock
  • bedstead
  • fossil

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press