lief

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lef, also leve and lief,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English lēof (“dear, beloved, pleasant”),^[5][6][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *leubaz (“dear, beloved”),^[9][10][11] from Proto-Indo-European *leubʰ- (“to care, desire, love”).^[6][9][11] Its cognates are Old Frisian liāf, Old Saxon liof, Dutch lief, Old High German liob, German lieb, Old Norse ljúfr and Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍆𐍃 (liufs), all meaning dear or beloved.^[5][9][10] The OED and Hoad trace it to a pre-Germanic form that also gave a Slavic adjective,^[5][12] and Skeat and Weekley compare Latin lubet (“it pleases”).^[13][14] It is related to love,^{[7][15][16][14]} and the Oxford Dictionary of English adds leave in the sense of permission.^[16] The adverb is formed from the adjective.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dear, beloved: in Old English, in Beowulf, which Barnhart dates about 725.^[7][5][17] Etymonline dates the adverb, gladly or willingly, to about 1250, the OED to 1297, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, and Barnhart to about 1300.^[6][5][7]

Semantic evolution

Old English also used the word as a noun: Bosworth-Toller and the OED record it for a dear one or friend, and as a form of address to a superior, much like "dear sir".^[8][5] The adjective was common in Middle English, with 127 uses in Chaucer and 69 in Gower.^[18] A dative construction, liefer was to me, meaning "I had rather", goes back to Old English,^[5] and the word appears from about 1290 with have in I had as lief, like German lieb haben and Dutch liefhebben.^[5] Weekley explains the modern would as lief as a reinterpretation of I'd as lief, originally I had as lief, when the contraction came to be read as I would.^[14] Shakespeare wrote "I had as lief have the foppery of freedom" in Measure for Measure.^[6] The opposition to loath, as in lief or loath, is as old as Beowulf.^[5] Etymonline holds that I would lief faded in the 17th century, leaving the gap that I want and I'd love to now fill.^[6] Johnson (1755) still defined the adjective as "dear; beloved", quoting Spenser's liefest.^[19] In dialect the word stayed in general use in Scotland, Ireland, England and America at the end of the 19th century, in spellings such as leef in Yorkshire and Lancashire, leave in the north and lay in west Somerset.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English adjective, dear, beloved.^[7][5]
• before 1121 – Middle English leove, leve, dear.^[2][7]
• c. 1250 – adverb, dearly, gladly, willingly.^[6] The OED's first record is from 1297,^[5] and Barnhart dates it about 1300.^[7]
• c. 1290 – in phrases with have, as I had as lief.^[5]
• c. 1325 – desirous, willing, glad (obsolete by 1500).^[5]
• before 1376 – the form lef, in Piers Plowman.^[7]

Meanings

Adverb

1. Gladly, willingly, mainly in would as lief and had as lief: I'd as lief stay home as sit in that traffic.^{[4][16][21][3]}

Adjective

1. (archaic) Beloved, dear.^[4][21][3]
2. (archaic) Ready, willing or glad.^[4][21][3]
3. (obsolete) Pleasing or acceptable to someone, used with a dative pronoun.^[3][5]

Noun

1. (archaic) A beloved person; a sweetheart.^[3][5][2]
2. (obsolete, Old English–1400) A respectful title for a superior, equivalent to dear sir.^[3][5]

Word family

• liefly

Related words

• leman
• livelong
• love
• belief
• believe
• leave

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
16. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Klaeber, Fr., ed. (1922), Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, Boston: D. C. Heath
18. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ 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)
21. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins