reindeer

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English reindere, also raindere, reynder and rayne-dere,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old Norse hreindýri,^{[5][6][7][8][9]} compounded of hreinn (“reindeer”), the usual Old Norse name of the animal, and dýr (“animal”), the cognate of deer.^[2][3][7] The OED says the second part was remodelled after deer, and compares Swedish rendjur (1648) and Danish rensdyr.^[5] The Norse noun is cognate with Old English hrān (“reindeer”), from Proto-Germanic *hrainaz;^[3][10][11] the OED calls it of uncertain origin, perhaps from the same Indo-European base as Ancient Greek κριός (kriós, “ram”), so that the animal would be named for its antlers.^[5][9] Watkins, cited by Etymonline and the AHD, refers it to Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“horn, head”), the root of horn.^[2][12][3] Dutch rendier and German Rentier are calques of the Scandinavian compound; Renntier was altered after rennen (“to run”).^[5][13][9] French renne is from Germanic, through German.^[2][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The northern deer: the OED's first quotation is from the alliterative Morte Arthure, in a manuscript of about 1440 (the poem probably before 1400).^[5] Barnhart dates rayne-dere before 1400 and reyndere to about 1408,^[3] and Etymonline dates the word to about 1400.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old English had the simple noun hrān, but only once, in King Alfred's account of the voyage of the Norwegian Ohthere, where the Norwegians' tame and wild reindeer are described; the OED takes it as an English rendering of the Norse word.^[5][13] The modern word came again from Scandinavia in Middle English.^[5][2] From about 1460 it was also a beast in heraldry, drawn as a stag with a double set of antlers.^[5] Larwood and Hotten, cited by Etymonline, note that when the animal was still new to Londoners in the 1670s its name was spelled rain-deer, rained-deer, range-deer and ranged-deer on tavern signs.^[2] Older writers had linked the name to Lapp or Finnish words.^[2][11] Skeat rejected this, explaining Diez's raingo as a bad spelling of renko (“reindeer cow”).^[11][2]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – rayne-dere, the northern deer.^[3][2] The OED's first quotation is from a manuscript of about 1440.^[5]
• c. 1408 – reyndere.^[3]
• c. 1460 – in heraldry, a stag with double antlers.^[5]
• 1670s – rain-deer, ranged-deer on London tavern signs.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large deer of the genus Rangifer, of the arctic and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America, in which both sexes have large branching antlers.^[14][4] In North America it is usually called the caribou.^[14] The plural is reindeer, or rarely reindeers.^{[14][4][5][15]}

Related words

• deer
• horn

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press