lager

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Lagerbier (“beer brewed for keeping”),^[2][3][4][5] half adopted and half translated as lager beer^[6][7][8] and then shortened.^[2][6][3][8] The German compound is formed from Lager (“storehouse; camp, bed”) and Bier (“beer”).^[2][3][8] Lager is from Middle High German leger, from Old High German legar (“bed”),^[9][8] from Proto-Germanic *legrą,^[10] from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie down, lay”);^[3][9][10] it is related to lair, laager and leaguer.^[11][12][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A light beer stored to mature before it is drunk: lager is first recorded in 1855, in J. E. Cooke's novel Ellie,^[2][6] although Merriam-Webster dates it to 1852 and Etymonline to 1858.^[8][3] The full lager beer is older: 1845 in Etymonline, 1853 in the OED and 1854 in Barnhart.^[3][2][6]

Semantic evolution

The word arose in American English,^[6][3] for a beer that the OED's entry, first published in 1901, described as drunk mostly in Germany and America and to some extent in England;^[2] the Shorter Oxford notes that it was originally German or Bohemian.^[13] In Britain the compound lager lout, a young man made rowdy or aggressive by heavy drinking, is recorded from 1987.^[2][14] The verb, to store beer so that it matures, was borrowed separately from German lagern (“to store”) and is recorded from 1946.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1855 – a light beer stored to mature; also a glass of it.^[2][6]
• 1946 – verb, to store beer to mature.^[2]
• 1987 – lager lout, a drunken, aggressive young man.^[2][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A light, effervescent beer made by bottom fermentation and stored cold to mature before it is drunk: They ordered two pints of lager.^[15][8][13]
2. A glass or bottle of this beer.^[2][13]

Verb

1. To store beer while it matures, often with a second fermentation.^[8][13][2]

Related words

• lager beer
• lair
• laager
• leaguer
• lie
• beer

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b Tréguer, Pascal, Word Histories, wordhistories.net, p. "‘lager lout’: meaning and origin", 20 October 2020
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins