Etymologically
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moody

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English mody,[2][3] inherited from Old English mōdig (“brave, proud, high-spirited, wilful”),[4][5][6][7][2] formed from mōd (“mind, spirit, courage”), the source of mood, with the suffix that gives English -y.[2][6][7][8] Further back it is inherited from Proto-Germanic *mōdagaz.[9][4] It is cognate with Old Saxon mōdag, Middle Dutch moedich and Dutch moedig, Middle High German muotec and German mutig, Old Norse móðugr, Swedish modig and Danish modig, and Gothic 𐌼𐍉𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍃 (mōdags, “angry”).[5][4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Brave, bold, high-spirited or passionate, often as a general term of praise: Old English, first in Beowulf.[5][6][8]

Semantic evolution

Old English mōd covered the mind, thought and fierceness, and mōdig meant brave, passionate or strong-willed.[8] It also meant proud, haughty or headstrong, a sense lost after about 1500;[5][6] from about 1175, in the Ormulum, angry or wrathful,[5][4] which Johnson (1755) still gave first, as "angry; out of humour", quoting The Tempest.[10] The old sense "brave" survived in Scottish use into the 18th century.[5] The modern sense, sullen or given to gloomy moods, grew out of the sense "angry":[4][8] the OED finds it about 1300, in King Horn, the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins by the 13th century,[5][8] while Etymonline dates it to the 1590s and Merriam-Webster to 1593.[4][11] It now chiefly describes a person given to sudden changes of mood.[5] From 1814, in Wordsworth, it was also used of what evokes a mood, especially a brooding one.[5] In Devon dialect it meant low-spirited.[12] In British criminals' slang it came to mean false or counterfeit (1958, in Frank Norman), and a noun moody, of uncertain origin and perhaps from the adjective, meant flattery or lies used to win someone's confidence (1934), later a sulk (1969).[5][13]

Timeline

  • Old English – brave, high-spirited, in Beowulf (obsolete by 1755).[5]
  • Old English – proud, haughty, wilful (obsolete by 1500).[5]
  • c. 1175 – angry, wrathful (obsolete by 1697).[5][4]
  • c. 1300 – gloomy, ill-humoured, in King Horn.[5]
  • 1593 – subject to depression, gloomy.[11]
  • 1814 – evoking a brooding mood.[5]
  • 1934 – noun, flattery or persuasive lies (slang).[5][13]
  • 1958 – false, counterfeit (slang).[5][13]
  • 1969 – noun, a sulk.[5]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Given to sudden, unpredictable changes of mood; temperamental.
  2. Sullen, gloomy or bad-tempered: He sat in moody silence all evening.
  3. Evoking a mood, especially a brooding one: moody lighting.
  4. (British slang) False or counterfeit.

Noun

  1. (British informal) A fit of sulking, as in to throw a moody.
  2. (British slang) Flattery or lies meant to win someone over.

Word family

  • moodily
  • moodiness

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ 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)
  13. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com