lode

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lode, also lod and lade,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English lād (“way, course, journey”),^[5][2][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *laidō (“way, course”),^[8][9] derived from *līþaną (“to go”),^[8][5] the source of līþan (“to go”).^[5][2] Its cognates include Old Norse leið (“way, course”) and Old High German leita (“course, leading, procession”).^[5][9] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take it back to Proto-Indo-European *leit- (“to go forth”).^[10][6] Lode is etymologically the same word as load, and merely a different spelling of it, now kept for certain senses;^[5][11][12] the Germanic noun also lies behind lead, to conduct.^[13][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A way, journey or course, in Old English: the OED's first record is the poem Andreas,^[5] and Dictionary.com dates the word to before 900.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Old English lād meant a way or course, and also a carrying or conveyance.^[5][13] In Middle English the sense "burden" arose, under the influence of lade,^[5][13][10] and both spellings were used for both sets of meanings.^[14] The two sets separated in the 16th century, and lode kept the older idea of a course to be followed,^[10][3] seen also in lodestar, from about 1385 in Chaucer, a guiding star, and lodestone, about 1515, a guiding stone.^[3][13] In the fens the word came to mean a watercourse or open drain: the OED has this from 1572, and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to late Middle English.^[5][15][16] The mining sense, a vein of metal ore, is recorded from 1602, in Carew's Survey of Cornwall,^[5][3] and Etymonline explains it by miners following the vein through the rock.^[10] English dialects kept lode for a lane or a road across a bog in Cheshire, for an artificial channel or drain in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, and for a ferry or ford in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, as at Tewkesbury.^[17]

Timeline

• before 900 – Old English lād, way, course, journey.^[7][5]
• c. 1175 – leading, guidance, in the Ormulum (obsolete by 1400).^[5]
• 1509 – a lodestone, also an object of attraction.^[5]
• 1572 – a watercourse, aqueduct or channel.^[5][3]
• 1602 – in mining, a vein of metal ore.^[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deposit of metal ore filling a fissure in the surrounding rock or lying within definite limits; a vein: The prospectors followed the silver lode deep into the hillside.^[18][2][5]
2. Something like such a deposit; a rich supply of something.^[2]
3. (dialect) A waterway or channel, especially an open drain in fenland.^[2][5][17]
4. (dialect) A path, lane or road.^[2][5][17]
5. A lodestone; figuratively, an object of attraction.^[5][15]

Word family

• lodestar
• mother lode

Related words

• loadstone
• load
• lead
• lodestone
• livelihood

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c 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)
18. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins