holster

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Dutch holster,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} a word that appears in Dutch at the same time as in English (1678, in Hexham);^[8][9][10] the OED, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English leave the origin of both open.^[8][10][9] The American Heritage Dictionary sees the Dutch word as an alteration of holfter, hulfter, from Middle High German hulfter (“case, sheath, quiver”), from Old High German hulft,^[2] and Skeat and Weekley also linked it with German Holfter.^[11][7] The OED instead groups it with Old Norse hulstr (“case, sheath”), hölster, hylster, Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌻𐌹𐍃𐍄𐍂 (hulistr, “veil, covering”) and Old English heolstor (“hiding place, concealment”), all from a Germanic stem meaning "to cover", and takes the German and Old High German words to be from another root.^[8][12] Etymonline and Barnhart derive the English word from the Old English one, Barnhart through hulster (“hiding place”), a form recorded in place names from 1310,^[13][14] but Etymonline grants that the intermediate forms are missing and that it could as well come from the Norse or Dutch word,^[13] and Ayto notes that the Old English word did not survive into Middle English.^[5] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *hulastrą.^[1] The family goes back to helan (“to conceal”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover, hide”),^{[12][3][5][13]} also the source of hell, hall, cell and conceal.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A leather case for a horseman's pistol, fixed to the saddle: 1644, in John Vernon's The Young Horse-man.^[8] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the word to 1663, in Butler's Hudibras,^[14][3] and Etymonline to the 1660s.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) still defined a holster as a case for a horseman's pistol and quoted Hudibras.^[15] Later the holster was more often worn on a belt or under the arm,^[8][3] and the word was extended to any similar case for carrying a tool, such as a climber's ice axe or piton hammer.^[16][4] The verb, to put a gun into its holster, is recorded by 1902 in Etymonline;^[13] the OED's first record is from 1956, and the use is chiefly American.^[8][16] In Devon and Cornwall dialect holster or hulster meant a hiding place.^[17]

Timeline

• 1644 – a case for a pistol fixed to a saddle.^[8] Barnhart's first record is Hudibras (1663).^[14]
• 1956 – verb, to put a gun into its holster.^[8] Etymonline dates the verb by 1902.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A case, usually of leather, for carrying a pistol, worn on a belt or under the arm or fixed to a saddle.^[4][3][8]
2. (mountaineering) A similar case for an ice axe or piton hammer.^[4][16]

Verb

1. To put a gun into its holster: The deputy holstered his revolver and stepped back.^[3][8][16]

Word family

• holstered

Related words

• hele
• hell
• hall
• cell
• conceal
• hull

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
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 c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ 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)