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forge

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English has two main verbs spelled forge: the smith's word, which also gave the noun, and a nautical verb meaning to move ahead, of unknown origin.[1][2][3][4]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /fɔːd͡ʒ/[5]
  • US: /fɔɹd͡ʒ/[5]

forge1 smithy; to shape, counterfeit

Etymology

The smith's word is inherited from Middle English forgen, borrowed from Old French forgier (modern forger),[1][6][7] from Latin fabricō (“to frame, construct, build”),[1][8][9] itself from fabrica (“workshop, trade, manufactured object”).[8][10] The noun is Middle English forge, from forge, earlier faverge,[1][2][8] which continues a Common Romance form *faurga, from the same fabrica,[1][11][12] a derivative of faber (“a worker in hard materials, a smith”).[8][2][3] Barnhart connects faber with Old English gedafen (“fitting”) and a root Proto-Indo-European *dʰabʰ-,[2] and Merriam-Webster also refers it to the family of daft.[3] The word is thus a doublet of fabric.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make something in fraudulent imitation of something else: c. 1330, in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle, the earliest sense the OED records;[1] Barnhart dates the counterfeiting sense to before 1325, and the general sense, to make or shape, to about 1350.[2] The verb to make or construct a material thing is found from 1382, in the early Wycliffite Bible.[1]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb covered all making, especially smith's work: to shape metal by heating and hammering (c. 1400), to coin money, to work at the forge (1382).[1][6] Chaucer used it in all these ways and also for inventing a story, and the sense of fabricating a lie or a false tale is found in his Parson's Tale (c. 1386).[1][13] Ayto describes the sense of faking as a purely English development, since the related words in other languages mean simply to make;[14] Barnhart instead thinks it was influenced by Anglo-French forger, to falsify, and Etymonline gives "falsify" among the senses of the Old French verb.[2][8] The specific modern sense of counterfeiting a document or a signature is recorded from 1535, and the intransitive "to commit forgery" from Shakespeare.[1] The noun meant manufacture or workmanship in Gower (1390), then a smithy, in Chaucer's Miller's Tale (c. 1405), the smith's hearth with its bellows (1481) and a furnace for refining metal (1601).[1][8] Johnson (1755) noted that forge was used for large work and smithy for small, though writers did not keep the distinction.[15] The figurative use, to forge an alliance or a bond, continues the old sense "to make, fashion".[1][16]

Timeline

  • c. 1330 – to counterfeit.[1]
  • 1382 – to make or construct; to do smith's work.[1]
  • c. 1386 – to invent a false story.[1]
  • 1390 – noun, manufacture, workmanship (obsolete).[1]
  • c. 1400 – to shape metal by heating and hammering.[1]
  • c. 1405 – noun, a smithy.[1]
  • 1481 – noun, a smith's hearth with bellows.[1][8]
  • 1535 – to imitate fraudulently, as a signature.[1]
  • 1601 – noun, a furnace for refining metal.[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A blacksmith's workshop; a smithy.
  2. A hearth or furnace in which metal is heated before it is worked.
  3. A works where metal is shaped by hammering or pressing.

Verb

  1. To shape metal by heating and hammering, or with a press.
  2. To make or create something with effort, especially a relationship or an agreement: The two towns forged a lasting partnership.
  3. To make a fraudulent copy of a document, signature or banknote; to counterfeit.

Word family

  • forger
  • forgery
  • forging

forge2 move ahead

Etymology

The verb of moving ahead is of unknown origin.[1][3][8] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford suggest that it is a corrupt pronunciation of force, used in the same way from the 17th century;[12][7][10] the OED notes this conjecture, and another that it is a transferred use of forge1, alluding to the effect of repeated blows of a hammer, which Barnhart and Etymonline also mention.[1][2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a ship, to make headway, especially by momentum or by the pressure of the tide: 1769, in William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine.[1][8][2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1611, and Barnhart and Etymonline note an apparently isolated, figurative use of the 1610s.[3][2][8]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline describes it as originally and properly a nautical word,[8] transitive in nautical use from 1815.[1] It spread to other movement, especially in forge ahead, to take the lead in a race or to move forward fast,[7] and in the late 19th century to making one's way gradually and steadily.[7] Merriam-Webster also has the figurative sense, to progress or advance.[3]

Timeline

  • 1611 – Merriam-Webster's first date.[3]
  • 1769 – of a ship, to make headway.[1][2]
  • 1815 – (nautical) transitive use.[1]
  • late 19th century – to make one's way gradually.[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To move forward steadily, especially against difficulty or by momentum: The ship forged on through the swell.
  2. To move ahead suddenly and with increased speed, especially in forge ahead: In the last lap she forged into the lead.
  3. To make steady progress: The firm forged ahead with its plans.

Usage notes

A third verb, of a horse, to strike the shoe of a fore foot with a hind foot, is recorded from 1843 and may be the smith's word, with reference to the sound.[1][7] The English Dialect Dictionary records this use in Worcestershire, where it was also pronounced farge, and in Devon.[17] In Caithness forge was also a schoolchildren's word for copying another's work and passing it off as one's own.[17]

References

  1. ^ 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 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b 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)
  7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b 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)