Etymologically
Log in

hose

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 22:02. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hose, inherited from Old English hosa (“a covering for the leg”),[2][3][4][5] inherited from Proto-Germanic *husǭ.[1][6] The word is shared by the old Germanic languages: Old Saxon hosa, Old High German hosa and Old Norse hosa, with German Hose (“trousers”), Dutch hoos (“stocking; water-hose, waterspout”) and Danish hose (“stocking”).[3][4][2][7] It is generally traced to Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover, conceal”), so that the word meant "covering";[2][8][4][6] Merriam-Webster and Klein relate it to hide.[9][10] The Romance words, Medieval Latin hosa, Old French hose or heuse, Italian uosa and Old Spanish huesa, were taken from Germanic,[3][2][10] and Weekley cites Old French courte heuse, the source of a Norman nickname.[11] Welsh hos and Cornish hos are from English.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A covering for the leg, sometimes a legging reaching to the ankle and sometimes a long stocking covering the foot: late Old English, in a vocabulary glossing Latin caliga and ocrea;[3][5][4] Bosworth-Toller and Holthausen record that hosa could also mean a husk or pod.[5][12]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the plural was hosen, still used in Scotland and some English dialects,[3][13] and the collective plural hose is recorded from 1297.[3] From the 15th to the 17th century hose could be a garment for the legs and loins, worn with a doublet as the typical dress of a man,[3][2] and Johnson (1755) gave "breeches" before "stockings".[14] Today the word is used chiefly in the plural, for stockings or tights.[15][9] The sense "flexible pipe for water" is the same word,[11][16] and its source is debated: Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and Ayto think it came from Dutch, where hoos meant both a stocking and a water-hose,[7][15][17] but Barnhart finds it in 1339, too early for Dutch influence.[4] The OED's first example is from naval accounts of 1495–7,[3] and Weekley quotes a ship's purchase of "hoose for the pumpes" in 1540.[11] The verb meant to provide with hose from about 1300,[3][2] and to water or drench with a hose from 1883 in Etymonline, 1887 in the OED.[2][3] In 20th-century slang, to hose was to spray with machine-gun fire (1917),[18][9] and in American slang to cheat or treat unfairly.[9]

Timeline

  • Old English – hosa, a covering for the leg; a husk.[3][5]
  • c. 1275 – hosen, leg armour, in Laȝamon's Brut.[3]
  • 1297 – collective plural hose.[3]
  • c. 1300 – verb, to provide with hose.[3]
  • 1339 – a flexible pipe (Barnhart).[4]
  • c. 1460 – breeches, as in doublet and hose.[3]
  • 1495 – a flexible pipe for water (OED).[3]
  • 1883 – verb, to drench with water from a hose.[2]
  • 1917 – (slang) to spray with gunfire.[18]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A flexible tube or pipe for carrying water or another liquid or gas: She left the hose running in the garden.
  2. (plural hose) Stockings, socks or tights; hosiery.
  3. (historical) A close-fitting garment covering the legs and lower body, worn by men with a doublet.

Verb

  1. To water, wash or spray with a hose, often with down: He hosed down the patio.
  2. (slang) To fire on with continuous automatic fire.
  3. (US slang) To cheat or treat unfairly.
  4. (archaic) To provide with hose.

Word family

  • hoseless
  • hoselike
  • hosepipe
  • hosier
  • unhosed
  • panty hose

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  13. ^ 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)
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  18. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com