dizziness

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dysinesse (“folly, vertigo”),^[2] inherited from Old English dysignes (“folly”),^[2][3][4] from dysig (“foolish”) and -nes, the ancestors of dizzy and -ness.^[2][1][3] Bosworth–Toller records the Old English noun, also spelled dysines, with the senses "folly" and "blasphemy", glossing Latin stultitia and blasphēmia.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Folly, foolishness: the Old English noun is first recorded in the Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, where the English pagans are said to be puffed up with barbarous folly.^[1][4]

Semantic evolution

The noun followed the adjective dizzy, which meant "foolish, stupid" in Old English and gained the sense "giddy" in the 14th century.^[1][3] Etymonline dates the sense "giddiness, a whirling in the head" for the noun to about 1400,^[3] and the Middle English form had both "folly" and "vertigo".^[2] Johnson (1755) gave it only as "giddiness; whirl in the head".^[6]

Timeline

• Old English – folly, foolishness.^[1][4]
• c. 1400 – giddiness, a whirling in the head.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of being dizzy, especially a feeling of unsteadiness with a sense of things spinning in the head; giddiness: A wave of dizziness made her sit down.^[2][1][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.