morrow

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English morwe, also morewe,^[2][3][4] a form of morwen that lost its final -n,^[5][3][6][7] inherited from Old English morgen (“morning”).^[5][2][8] The same Middle English word gave morn, by loss of the -w-;^[6] the OED treats morrow as a shortening of morn.^[7] The OED notes that the loss of the final nasal is first found in late Old English compounds, probably as a separate development, which may have reinforced the Middle English shortening of the simple word.^[7] The Old English word is inherited from Proto-Germanic *murganaz,^[9] the source also of Old Saxon morgan, Old Frisian morgen, Dutch morgen, Old High German morgan, German Morgen, Old Norse morgunn and Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌲𐌹𐌽𐍃 (maurgins).^[10][11][9] Etymonline and Klein trace it to Proto-Indo-European *merk- (“to blink, twinkle”), perhaps an extension of *mer-, the source of Lithuanian mirgėti (“to blink”).^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Morning: late Old English, in compounds, in the prose Solomon and Saturn;^[7] Etymonline also cites 12th-century compounds such as morgewile, the time around daybreak.^[10] The simple word morewe is recorded about 1250, and morwe about 1300.^[12][3][10]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant the morning;^[7][2] from about 1300 it also meant the next day, the day after the one being spoken of.^[7] Johnson (1755) explained the change: the morning was often spoken of on the day before, and so the word came to mean the whole of the following day.^[13] Weekley notes that morrow and morn were still interchangeable in dialect, and compares Morgen, which means both "morning" and "tomorrow".^[14] Chaucer used morwe 89 times, for the morning, the dawn and the next day.^[15] The greeting good morrow, good morning, was common from the late 14th century,^[10] and the short greeting morrow survived in British regional and Irish English.^[7][16] From about 1595 the word was used figuratively for the time just after an event.^[7] In Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man, the morrow means tomorrow, recorded from 1620,^[7][17] and the English Dialect Dictionary records phrases such as the morrow morning and the morrow come never, never.^[17] The sense "morning" is now rare and chiefly poetic.^[7][18]

Timeline

• late Old English – morning, in compounds.^[7]
• c. 1250 – morewe.^[3]
• c. 1300 – the next day, the day after.^[7]
• late 14th century – good morrow, a greeting.^[10]
• c. 1595 – the time just after an event.^[7]
• 1620 – Scottish and Irish the morrow, tomorrow.^[7]
• before 1625 – morrow as a greeting, good morning.^[7]
• 1839 – verb, to dawn (obsolete by 1884).^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic or literary) The next day; the day after a given day, usually the morrow: They agreed to march on the morrow.^[8][18][7]
2. (archaic or literary) The time just after an event: on the morrow of the revolution.^[8][18][7]
3. (archaic) The morning.^[8][18][7]

Word family

• tomorrow
• good morrow

Related words

• morn
• morning
• morganatic

References

1. ^ a b 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster