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die

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English has two words spelled die: the verb “to stop living”, probably from Old Norse, and the noun, a gaming cube or a stamping tool, from French.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

die1 stop living

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English dien, also deien,[5][2][1] probably borrowed from Old Norse deyja (“to die”),[5][1][6][7] or Old Danish døja,[5] from Proto-Germanic *dawjanan,[2][5] the source also of Old Saxon dōian, Old High German touwen and Gothic diwans “mortal”,[5][3] and of dead.[8][9] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *dheu- (“to pass away, die”).[5][1] Hoad says an unrecorded Old English *dīegan is also possible,[9] and the SOED that a verb may have existed in Old English, reinforced from Old Norse.[6] In surviving Old English texts the usual words for “to die” were steorfan, the source of starve, and sweltan, and phrases with dead.[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of people, “to cease to live”: about 1135[11] or the mid-12th century.[5] Barnhart dates deien to probably about 1200 and dien to about 1300.[2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that languages rarely borrow words for central life experiences, but that words for dying are an exception, as they are often hidden or changed out of superstitious dread.[5] It was regularly spelled dege until the 15th century and is still pronounced “dee” by some in Lancashire and Scotland.[5][11] “To come to an end” is from the mid-13th century, and of plants, “to wither”, from the late 14th century.[5] Of sounds and other things it is used figuratively from the 1580s, and die away is from the 1670s.[5] “To long for”, as in dying to go, is colloquial from 1709.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1135 – to cease to live.[11]
  • mid-13th century – to come to an end.[5]
  • late 14th century – of plants.[5]
  • 1580s – figurative, of sounds.[5]
  • 1670s – die away.[5]
  • 1709 – to long for.[5]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To stop living; to expire.
  2. To come to an end or fade away gradually.
  3. To suffer as if dying.
  4. (informal) To want something very much: dying to know.
  5. To stop working: the engine died.

Word family

  • dying
  • die-hard
  • die-off
  • die away
  • die down
  • die out

die2 gaming cube; stamp

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Middle English dy, later de,[2] borrowed from Old French de (“die, dice”),[5][2][1] of uncertain origin but common to the Romance languages, as Spanish, Italian and Portuguese dado.[5][2] It is perhaps from Latin datum (“given”), the past participle of dare (“to give”),[5][1][6] which also had the sense “to play”, as a piece in a game; or the notion is “what is given” by chance.[5] Merriam-Webster suggests instead Arabic dad “game”.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small cube used in gaming: probably before 1300, in the plural dys,[2] or the early 14th century as a plural and the late 14th century as a singular.[5]

Semantic evolution

The figurative the die is cast, “the decisive step is taken”, is from the 1630s, translating Latin alea iacta est, said by Caesar at the Rubicon.[5] An engraved stamping block for coins and similar tools is a die from the 1690s, perhaps because such dies were often used in pairs.[5] In this sense the plural is dies; in the gaming sense it is dice.[6] The verb, “to shape with a die”, is from 1703.[11]

Timeline

  • before 1300 – a gaming cube.[2]
  • 1630s – the die is cast.[5]
  • 1690s – a stamping tool.[5]
  • 1703 – verb, to shape with a die.[11]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A small cube marked with one to six spots, used in games; one of a pair of dice.
  2. A device for cutting, shaping or stamping material, as in coining money.

Verb

  1. To cut or shape with a die.

Word family

  • dice
  • die-cast
  • die-casting
  • diestock
  • dead
  • death
  • starve
  • swelter
  • date
  • dado

Usage notes

Word Origins notes that the Old English swelt, “to die”, survived in dialect but has probably now died out.[10] The OED records the obsolete phrase to make a die (of it), “to die”, from 1611.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press