bereave

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bireven,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English berēafian (“to deprive of, seize, take away by force”),^[3][5][6][7] formed from be- and rēafian (“to rob, plunder”), the source of reave.^{[8][9][7][10]} It is a common Germanic formation: compare Old Frisian birāvia (“to despoil”), Old Saxon birōbon, Old High German biroubōn, Dutch beroven, German berauben and Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌱𐍉𐌽 (biraubōn, “to rob”),^{[11][3][12][6]} from Proto-Germanic *biraubōną.^[1][6] Its base *raubōjanan (“to rob”)^[8][3] goes back to Proto-Indo-European *reup- (“to tear, break”),^[8][4][13] a root Ayto relates to the Latin base of rupture;^[14] Etymonline gives *runp- (“to break”) instead.^[3] The same Germanic base came back through French in rob.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To deprive or rob someone of something, the thing originally standing in the genitive: in Old English, first in the OED from Ælfred's translation of Boethius,^[11] where Bosworth–Toller quotes Heó hit ne mæg his gewittes bereáfian, "she cannot bereave it of its faculty".^[5] Barnhart gives about 725, in a version of Genesis.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The original sense was depriving in general, of anything at all.^[15] Old English also had the violent sense of seizing or robbing,^[3][5] and Chaucer and Gower use bireven for taking away, robbing and depriving.^[16] The simple verb has died out in the standard language, leaving this derivative.^[14][3] About 1175 the verb was already used of plundering a person, and it came to mean leaving someone destitute, orphaned or widowed,^[11] while the sense of snatching a possession away ran from about 1320 to 1720.^[11] Since about 1650 it has been used mostly of immaterial things, such as life or hope, and of loved ones.^[11][3] Johnson (1755) gave "to strip of; to deprive of", usually with of.^[17] The noun bereavement, first in Bailey's dictionary in 1731, meant loss of anything, and now only loss by death.^[11][12][8]

Timeline

• Old English – to deprive or rob of something.^[11][5] Barnhart has about 725.^[8]
• c. 1175 – with a double object, in the Ormulum.^[11]
• c. 1175 – to plunder or despoil a person, in the Lambeth Homilies.^[11]
• perhaps before 1200 – bereaved, deprived, robbed.^[11] Etymonline has the late 14th century.^[3]
• c. 1320 – to snatch away, remove by force (obsolete by 1720).^[11]
• c. 1375 – bereft, past participle, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[8]
• c. 1650 – mostly of immaterial things.^[11]
• 1731 – bereavement.^[11][3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deprive someone of a relative or friend by death, usually with of: The epidemic bereaved them of two daughters.^[9][18][12]
2. To strip or dispossess someone of something valued, now usually something immaterial; mostly in the form bereft: bereft of all courage.^[9][12][11]
3. To leave someone destitute, orphaned or widowed.^[11][12]
4. (obsolete, c. 1320–1720) To take away a possession by force.^{[11][9][18][12]}

Word family

• bereavement
• bereaver

Related words

• reave
• bereft
• rob
• rupture
• corrupt

Usage notes

Bereaved and bereft have existed side by side since the 14th century, and are now distinguished: bereaved is used of the loss of a loved one by death, and bereft of circumstances or things, as in bereft of hope.^[8][3][12] The past participle bereaven is archaic.^[9][12]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
14. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins