horde

Etymology

It is borrowed from Polish horda,^[2][3][4][5] which also passed into horde and Horde;^[2][6] Barnhart thinks English took it at different times from Spanish, perhaps from Polish (the first English spelling is horda), and also from French, which gave the modern spelling.^[7] The OED, revised in 2020, takes it instead from Medieval Latin orda, later horda, the Mongol ruler's camp or tent (1247), then a group of nomadic Mongol or Turkic peoples.^[8] The word goes back to Russian орда (ordá),^[9][10] and further to a Turkic word for a royal camp: compare Turkish ordu (“camp, army”).^{[11][3][2][12]} The OED also names Middle Mongol ordo (“palace, royal camp”), itself from Turkic,^[8] and Hoad derives the Polish word through Mongolian.^[5] The Turkic source is Old Turkic ordu, the khan's residence or headquarters, in the Orkhon inscriptions of 735^[13][14] and in Kashgari's dictionary (before 1100) the city where the khan lived;^[13] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Turkic *ordu.^[10] In later Turkish the word came to mean an army camp and an army.^[13][15] The h- first appears in German in 1429 and is of unknown origin, according to the OED;^[8] Weekley and Etymonline place it in Polish,^[12][11] and Barnhart calls it an arbitrary spelling device.^[7] The same Turkic word gave Urdu and ordu.^[8][2][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tribe or band of nomadic Mongol or Turkic families living in a large movable camp: 1555, in Eden's translation of Giovio, spelled horda.^[8][7] Earlier, about 1400, Mandeville's Travels took the word as a place name, "the cytee of Orda".^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the Tatar and other Central Asian nomads, as in the Golden Horde.^[8][2][3] From 1613, in Purchas, it was used more loosely of any large, disorderly or threatening crowd, and of a dangerous swarm of animals;^[8] Etymonline dates this transferred sense "any uncivilized gang" to the 1610s.^[11] Johnson (1755) defined it as a clan or a migratory band of people, and in 1773 added that it was used only of the Tatars.^[16] Anthropologists took it up for a small group of families living loosely together in a traditional society (1826),^[8] and since 1860 it could mean simply a large number of things, now often in the plural for "masses, loads".^[8] The verb, to gather or live in a horde, is recorded from 1801;^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline first find it in Byron's Sardanapalus (1821).^[7][11]

Timeline

• before 1425 – Orda, taken as the name of a city, in Mandeville's Travels.^[8]
• 1555 – a tribe of Mongol or Turkic nomads, as horda.^[8][7][6]
• 1613 – a large, disorderly crowd; a swarm of animals.^[8]
• 1617 – any similar group of nomadic people.^[8]
• 1801 – verb, to gather or live in a horde.^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline date the verb to 1821.^[7][11]
• 1826 – in anthropology, a loose group of a few families.^[8]
• 1860 – a large number or amount of things.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large crowd of people, especially a disorderly or threatening one: Hordes of shoppers filled the mall on the first day of the sale.^[4][8][6]
2. A large moving group of animals, especially insects: a horde of locusts.^[4][8]
3. A tribe of nomadic people, especially of the Tatars or other Central Asian peoples.^[4][6][8]
4. In anthropology, a small group of families living together loosely in a nomadic society.^[4][8][6]
5. A large number or amount of things; in the plural, masses or loads.^[8]

Verb

1. To gather, move or live in a horde.^[4][8][11]

Word family

• Golden Horde

Related words

• Urdu
• hoard

Usage notes

Horde is sometimes written by mistake where hoard, a store of valuables, is meant: a hoard of coins, not a horde.^[4][17]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition)
14. ^ Древнетюркский словарь (2016), 2nd ed., Astana
15. ^ a b Lokotsch, Karl (1927), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der europäischen (germanischen, romanischen und slavischen) Wörter orientalischen Ursprungs, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
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. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press