linden

Etymology

The noun is a use of an obsolete adjective of the same spelling meaning made of linden wood,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which is inherited from Middle English linden, inherited from Old English linden,^[3][5][7] formed from Old English lind (“linden, lime tree”) + -en.^[2][8][9] The Shorter Oxford, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English add that it was partly taken from, or reinforced by, Dutch lindenboom (now lindeboom) and German Lindenbaum, linden tree;^[8][10][9] the OED puts its modern currency down to translations of romances from German, and Weekley to German folk songs.^[2][11] Lind is cognate with Old Saxon linda, Middle Dutch linde, Old High German linta, German Linde and Old Norse lind,^[3][4][6] from Proto-Germanic *lindō.^[3][12] Barnhart, Etymonline and Klein derive this from Proto-Indo-European *lent- (“flexible”), with reference to the tree's pliant bast, and compare Latin lentus (“pliant”), Lithuanian lenta (“board, plank”), Polish łęt (“switch, twig”) and the English lithe;^{[3][4][6][12]} the OED and the Shorter Oxford instead compare Ancient Greek ἐλάτη (elátē, “silver fir”).^[2][8] The tree name lime is an alteration of a variant of lind.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an Old English adjective, made of the wood of the lime tree, used in the Exeter Book's Gnomic Verses of a shield;^[2][14] the adjective is last recorded about 1330.^[2] The noun, the lime tree itself, is first recorded in 1577, in B. Googe's translation of Heresbach.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the tree was called lind, and in poetry the same word meant a shield made of its wood;^[14][2] in Middle English poetry lind often stood for any tree, especially in the phrase under the lind.^[2] The adjective linden died out in Middle English,^[2] and the noun that took its place in the 16th century owed much to Dutch and German, where linden is the form of the word used in compounds.^[8][10][4] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the lime tree" and quoted Dryden.^[15] Since 1855 historians have also used linden to render the Old English shield lind.^[2]

Timeline

• Old English – the adjective, made of lime-tree wood (obsolete after about 1330).^[2]
• 1577 – noun, the lime tree.^[2][3][5]
• 1855 – historical, a shield of lime-tree wood, rendering Old English lind.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of a genus (Tilia) of deciduous trees of temperate regions with heart-shaped leaves and small fragrant yellowish flowers, grown for timber and as shade trees; a lime tree or basswood.^[16][5][2]
2. The light, soft, white wood of these trees.^[5]

Related words

• lind
• lithe
• lime

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ 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
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. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
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. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins