hoard

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hord,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hord (“treasure, store”),^[5][6][7][8] inherited from Proto-Germanic *huzdą.^{[6][7][9][10]} It is cognate with Old Saxon hord (“treasure, hidden inmost place”), Old High German hort, German Hort, Old Norse hodd and Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌶𐌳 (huzd, “treasure”).^{[5][6][7][10]} The verb is horden, from hordian, formed on the noun; the OED compares 𐌷𐌿𐌶𐌳𐌾𐌰𐌽 (huzdjan) and gihurten, which have a different conjugation.^[5][6][3][4] Many dictionaries derive the Germanic noun from Proto-Indo-European *kuzdhó-, the form before Germanic, perhaps for *kudhto- (“concealed, hidden”), which makes it related to hide;^{[5][9][11][12][13]} Kroonen finds this plausible in view of Old Swedish hydda (“shelter, hut”), with the Germanic consonant cluster explained by Bartholomae's law, and compares Ancient Greek κεύθω (keúthō, “to hide”).^[10] Etymonline and the AHD trace it to Proto-Indo-European *(s)keu- (“to cover, conceal”),^[6][14] and Barnhart to *keus-.^[7] The OED notes that the usual 16th- and 17th-century spellings “hoord” and “hurde” show an early lengthening of the vowel, as in board and ford, and that the spelling hoard is rare before the 18th century.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A store of valuable things laid by or hidden away, a treasure: Barnhart finds Old English hord about 725, in Beowulf,^[7] where the dragon is hordes hyrde, keeper of the hoard;^[8] the OED's first quotation is from the poem on Æthelstan in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[5] The verb hordian is first recorded in Ælfric's homilies.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word was used figuratively of things kept secret or treasured, such as the thoughts of the heart.^[5][2] From about 1200 to 1663 it also meant the place where a hoard was kept, a treasury.^[5] The figurative verb, to cherish or keep hidden in the heart, is recorded from 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwit.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a hidden stock or treasure, quoting Shakespeare's "the squirrel's hoard".^[15] The word was formerly used of treasure and money,^[16] and Weekley noted in 1916 that it was then said of sugar and matches;^[16] today it also names a find of buried ancient coins or treasure.^[17][3] In English dialect, hoarded eggs were eggs kept in lime or sawdust for winter sale.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English hord, a treasure, in Beowulf.^[7]
• Old English – verb hordian, to amass and store away.^[5][7]
• c. 1125 – Middle English hord, things saved and stored.^[7]
• before 1200 – the place where a hoard is kept (obsolete by 1663).^[5]
• 1340 – verb, figurative, to treasure up in the heart.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A store of money, food or other valuables put away and often kept secret: a hoard of tinned food in the cellar.^[17][3][5]
2. A buried store of ancient coins or treasure found by archaeologists.^[17][3]
3. An amassed stock of something intangible, such as facts or memories.^[3][5][19]

Verb

1. To gather and store away a supply of something, often secretly or greedily: During the shortage people hoarded petrol.^[17][3][5]
2. To keep something, such as a feeling, hidden and in reserve.^[3][5]

Word family

• hoarder
• word-hoard

Related words

• hide
• horde
• hoarding

Usage notes

Hoard is sometimes written by mistake for its homophone horde, a crowd or tribe: hordes of tourists, not hoards.^[17][20] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins notes that the two are often confused, though horde comes through Latin from Turkish.^[21] An unrelated hoard, a temporary fence of boards around a building site, now usually hoarding, is recorded from 1757 and probably goes back to Anglo-Norman hurdis.^[5][19][3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
20. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
21. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press