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Etymology and origin of the English word mare

Pronunciation

mare1 female horse

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
900 before 900, Old English translation of Bede
Inherited from
Old English mȳre via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *marhaz

Etymology

The female horse is inherited from Middle English mare, also mere,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English mȳre and, in Mercian, mēre,[2][5][3] from Proto-Germanic *marhijō,[5][2][3] a feminine derivative of *marhaz (“horse”),[6][7][8] the source of the Old English masculine mearh (“horse”).[6][5][9] The OED takes the modern word as a merger of the feminine and the masculine: the vowel of mare comes from the inflected forms of mearh.[6][3][2] The feminine is cognate with Old Frisian merrie, Old Saxon meriha, Dutch merrie, Old High German meriha, German Mähre (“mare, jade”) and Old Norse merr.[5][2][4][9] The masculine has relatives in Celtic, Gaulish μάρκαν (márkan), Old Irish marc, Welsh march and Breton marc'h, all meaning horse or stallion;[6][7][3] Kroonen calls it an isogloss of Germanic and Celtic,[7] and Etymonline notes the view that it is of Gaulish origin, perhaps a substrate word.[5] The masculine survives in English only in marshal.[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The female of the horse or another equine: in the Old English translation of Bede.[6] The Old English masculine mearh, a horse of either sex, appears in Beowulf and was used mainly in poetry.[6]

Semantic evolution

Word Origins notes that the sense "male horse" died out at the end of the Middle English period,[10] and the OED records mare for a horse of either sex until 1881, in later use in Irish English.[6] From the late 14th century, in Chaucer, it was also used of a woman,[6] in Etymonline's gloss "a bad woman, a slut",[5] a sense with a sexual undertone that Green traces to 1303.[11] Proverbs with mare are recorded from about 1405, in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale,[6] and shanks' mare, one's own legs as transport, belongs to a group of metaphorical "riding" uses that once included the gallows (1568–1834).[6] In Scots a mare was a trestle supporting scaffolding (from 1651),[6] in wrestling a throw over the shoulder (from 1602), later the flying mare,[6][5] and a mare's nest is an illusory discovery, from the 1610s.[5]

Timeline

  • before 900 – mȳre, a mare, in West Saxon.[2][12]
  • before 1250 – mare, a mare, a riding horse.[2]
  • c. 1387 – a woman, in Chaucer.[6]
  • 1568 – the gallows (obsolete by 1834).[6]
  • 1602 – a throw in wrestling.[6]
  • 1610s – mare's nest.[5]
  • 1651 – in Scots, a trestle supporting scaffolding.[6]
  • 1881 – last record of mare for a horse of either sex.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The mature female of the horse or another equine animal, as a donkey or zebra.[13][14][6]
  2. (Scotland) A trestle supporting scaffolding.[6][15]

Word family

  • flying mare
  • mare's nest
  • mare's tail
  • shanks' mare

mare2 goblin of nightmares

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Épinal Glossary
Inherited from
Old English mære via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *marǭ

Etymology

The night goblin is inherited from Middle English mare, inherited from Old English mære, also mare,[16][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *marǭ.[5][17] It is cognate with Middle Dutch mare, Middle Low German mar, Old High German mara, German Mahr (“incubus”) and Old Norse mara (“nightmare, incubus”),[5][6][4][16] and the Middle Dutch word passed through Picard into French cauchemar (“nightmare”).[6][5] Outside Germanic it is related to the first element of Old Irish morrigain (“queen of the elves”),[6][4] and to Polish zmora and Czech můra, nightmare.[6][5][17] Etymonline derives it from Proto-Indo-European *mora- (“incubus”), probably from the root Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to rub away, harm”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A spirit thought to lie on sleepers and cause a feeling of suffocation; also that feeling itself: in the early Old English Épinal Glossary.[6] Etymonline gives the Old English senses as incubus, nightmare, monster, and witch.[5]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and early 16th centuries the word could also mean a spectre or hag (1440–1529),[6] and Skelton and others used it for melancholy, often in the cry away the mare! (1529–1611).[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as a torpor that seems to press on the stomach, "the night hag";[18] he traced it to mara, a spirit that the northern nations imagined to torment sleepers.[18] Since then it has survived mainly in nightmare,[5][16][4] and in dialect compounds such as mare-rode, oppressed by an incubus, in Devon.[15] In British colloquial use since 1981, a mare is a shortening of nightmare: a frustrating or unpleasant experience, as in to have a mare.[6][11]

Timeline

  • early Old English – an incubus, the oppressive spirit of nightmares.[6]
  • 1440 – a spectre, a hag (obsolete by 1529).[6]
  • 1529 – melancholy, in away the mare! (obsolete by 1611).[6]
  • 1981 – short for nightmare, a dreadful experience.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (British, informal) A nightmare; a very unpleasant or frustrating experience: The trip home was a total mare.[6][11]
  2. (obsolete) An evil spirit thought to sit on sleepers and cause nightmares; an incubus.[14][6][16]

Word family

mare3 dark plain on the Moon

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1765
Borrowed from
Latin mare
Ultimate origin
Latin mare
Etymology tree of mare3
inherited borrowed derived
Latin mare
French mer
Italian mare
English mare
From the same root · mare3
Latin bimaris ← mare
Latin marinus ← mare
Latin mariscus ← mare

Etymology

The lunar plain is borrowed from New Latin mare, from Latin mare (“sea”),[6][2][14][5] the source of marine and related to mere "lake".[2][14][4][6] Etymonline traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *mori- (“body of water”).[5] The OED traces the post-classical Latin use to Kepler's reply to Galileo in 1610.[6] It notes that Plutarch already thought the dark parts of the Moon might be seas,[6] and that Galileo revived the idea in 1610 without using the word,[6] while Barnhart and Etymonline credit Galileo with applying mare to the dark areas.[2][5] Michael van Langren's map of 1645 named areas Mare, and the names still in use come from Giambattista Riccioli's map of 1651.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any of the large dark plains on the Moon's surface, once thought to be seas: 1860, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in the OED,[6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster;[2][14] Etymonline dates it to 1765.[5]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English from the Latin names of the lunar "seas", such as Mare Tranquillitatis, the Sea of Tranquillity,[2] which are often used in English without translation.[6] It was later applied to similar dark areas on Mars and other planets,[2][14] and the plains are now known to be basaltic.[6]

Timeline

  • 1765 – a dark area of the Moon.[5]
  • 1860 – first OED quotation.[6][2][14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (plural maria) Any of the large, dark, flat basaltic plains on the Moon, once believed to be seas; also a similar area on Mars.[6][14][2]

Usage notes

The lunar mare is pronounced [ˈmɑːreɪ] or [ˈmɑːri], with the plural maria [ˈmɑːrɪə].[16]

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 n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f 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 u v w Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ a b 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)
  16. ^ 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
  17. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  18. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.

Related etymologies

  • friend · also from Old English
  • bit · also from Old English
  • rather · also from Old English
  • turn · also from Old English
  • child · also from Old English
  • heart · also from Old English
  • further · also from Old English
  • soon · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Mare.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/mare. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·