hoarse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hors, earlier hos,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English hās (“hoarse”),^[6][2][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *haisaz.^[1][9][2] It is cognate with Old Frisian hās, Old Saxon hēs, Middle Dutch hees, Old High German heis, Dutch hees, German heiser and Old Norse háss.^{[6][8][4][10]} The r, not in the Old English form, is hard to explain.^[2][11] The OED notes that it is written only from about 1400, but that the agreement of English hoarse and Scots hairse implies an unrecorded Old English *hārs beside it;^[6] the Old Norse word and an Old Flemish heersch point the same way, and the OED adds that the form with r is now generally held to be the original Germanic one, which lost its r in most dialects.^[6][5] Barnhart likewise sets a stem Proto-Germanic *haisraz, the source of German heiser, and a metathesised *hairsaz beside it.^[3][9] Others see Norse influence on the Middle English form:^[8][12][13] the Shorter Oxford says the r forms came from the Old Norse cognate, and Hoad derives the word from an Old Norse *hārs.^[8][13] Klein and Merriam-Webster suggest the influence of harsh instead.^[4][14] Etymonline thinks the Germanic adjective perhaps first meant "dried out, rough",^[2] and Klein and Merriam-Webster relate it to hot;^[4][14] Barnhart and Köbler trace it to Proto-Indo-European *kāi-, Pokorny's root for heat.^[3][9] Holthausen compares Albanian kirem (“I become hoarse”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the voice, rough and husky.^[6][7] In Old English, hās glosses Latin raucus (“hoarse”) in Ælfric's Grammar,^[6][7] and the monastic Colloquy speaks of a boy who is now hoarse.^[7] In the Old English psalms the psalmist's throat has become hoarse.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense from Old English on: the voice of a person or animal that is rough and deep, as with a cold, and then the person, animal or throat with such a voice.^[6] The Middle English hos is used in the Owl and the Nightingale (about 1250) for the hoarse, chattering voice of a bird that pipes like a titmouse,^[5] and Chaucer, who has the word three times, has it of inanimate things in the Book of the Duchess (about 1369), in the form hors.^[6][3][15] Its use for other sounds, such as the sea or thunder, mainly poetic, is recorded from 1513, in Gavin Douglas.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as having the voice rough, as with a cold, or a rough sound, and quoted As You Like It and Macbeth.^[16] The verb hoarse, to be or become hoarse, is also Old English, but it survived only in dialect, latterly in hoarse up;^[6][8] its transitive use, to make hoarse, is recorded in 1877, in Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms.^[6] Hoarsen now does its work.^[8]

Timeline

• Old English – of the voice, rough and husky, in Ælfric's Grammar.^[6][7]
• c. 1250 – the Middle English form hos, in the Owl and the Nightingale.^[5][3]
• c. 1369 – of inanimate things, in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, with the form hors.^[6][3]
• c. 1400 – the form with r is regularly written.^[6][2]
• 1513 – of other sounds, chiefly in poetry, in Gavin Douglas.^[6]
• 1709 – as an adverb, hoarsely.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a voice: rough, low and husky, as from a cold or from shouting: a hoarse whisper.^[17][14][6]
2. Having such a voice: The fans were hoarse after the final.^[17][6]
3. Of other sounds: harsh and raucous, grating.^[17][14][6]

Word family

• hoarsely
• hoarseness
• hoarsen

Related words

• hot
• harsh
• horse

Usage notes

In Scots, hoarse was also a noun, a hoarse note or hoarseness, and the English Dialect Dictionary records it in Dorset as well.^[18] Wiktionary gives horse as a homophone,^[1] and Dictionary.com lists the two words as easily confused.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d 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)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c 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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House