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Etymology and origin of the English word roe

English has two words spelled roe: the small deer, inherited from Old English, and the fish eggs, first recorded in the 15th century.[1][2]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹəʊ/, /ˈɹoʊ/[3]

roe1 small deer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 700 Erfurt Glossary
Inherited from
Old English ra via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *raihô

Etymology

The deer is inherited from Middle English ro, also roo,[4][5][6] inherited from Old English rā, earlier rāha,[2][7][6][8][9][10] from Proto-Germanic *raihô.[9][11] Its cognates include Old Saxon rēho, Dutch ree, Old High German rēho and rēh, German Reh, Old Norse rá, Swedish rå and Danish rå.[2][6][8][11] Old English also had a feminine derivative, rǣge (“female roe”), matching Old High German reia.[2][11] The animal is probably named for its colour:[2] the OED, Barnhart and Klein compare Old Irish ríabach (“streaked, dusky”), Lithuanian raĩbas (“dappled”), Latvian raibs (“mottled”) and Old Prussian roaban (“striped”), from Proto-Indo-European *rei- (“streaked, spotted”),[2][6][12][9] and Ayto takes its underlying meaning to be "spotted", for the deer's dappled coat.[1] Kroonen likewise suggests that it was derived from an adjective meaning "grey".[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The roe deer: in the early Old English Erfurt Glossary,[2] about 700 in Barnhart.[6] Old English glossaries render Latin capreolus and caprea with it.[10]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English it appears as ro from about 1200, as roo from about 1325, and as roe before 1398;[6] Chaucer used it seven times.[13] The compound roebuck is recorded as a surname in 1209 and as a common noun before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a species of deer" and, secondly, "the female of the hart", quoting "as swift as the roes upon the mountains" from 1 Chronicles;[14] Chambers notes that it is sometimes applied to the female red deer,[15] a use Etymonline calls improper.[9] The Scots form rae was still in use in Ayrshire and Selkirkshire in 1967.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – rā, in the Erfurt Glossary.[2][6]
  • c. 1200 – Middle English ro.[6]
  • c. 1325 – the spelling roo.[6]
  • before 1387 – roobukke, roebuck, in Trevisa.[6]
  • before 1398 – the spelling roe.[6]
  • 1755 – Johnson adds the sense "the female of the hart".[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small Eurasian deer of the genus Capreolus, with short upright antlers and no visible tail; a roe deer: A roe slipped out of the birch wood at dusk.[2][7][4]
  2. A hind or doe, the female of the red deer.[4][14][15]

Word family

  • roebuck
  • roe deer

roe2 fish eggs

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1450 a Middle English leechbook
Borrowed from
Middle Dutch roge via Middle English

Etymology

The fish eggs are inherited from Middle English rowe, also roughe and roof.[4][6][8][16] Ayto, Collins, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take it as borrowed from Middle Dutch roge or Middle Low German roge,[1][17][7][18] and the OED allows either a borrowing of rōch, a form found chiefly in Flanders, or a native cognate of it.[2] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary propose instead an unrecorded native word, which Etymonline gives as Old English *hrogn, though it adds that the English word might rather come from Middle Dutch.[9][19] Related are Old High German rogo, German Rogen and, with a final -n, Old Norse hrogn, Danish and Norwegian rogn and Swedish rom,[6][9][7] from Proto-Germanic *hrugnaz;[9][20] the OED calls the forms without -n by-forms of the nouns with it.[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Klein compare Lithuanian kurkulaĩ (“frog's eggs”) and Latvian kuřkulis, from Proto-Indo-European *krek- (“frog spawn, fish eggs”),[6][9][12][4] while Hoad calls the ultimate origin unknown and Ayto uncertain.[8][1] A form with -n survived in dialect as rown.[21][22][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The mass of eggs in the ovaries of a female fish: about 1450, in a Middle English leechbook.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

From 1587 the soft roe was the milt of a male fish, as against the hard roe of the female;[2][17] from 1738 the word was used of either sex,[2] and the phrase in roe, of a female fish carrying eggs, is recorded from 1769.[2] In slang roe has also meant semen, from 1635.[23]

Timeline

  • c. 1450 – the eggs in a female fish's ovaries.[2]
  • 1587 – soft roe, the milt of a male fish.[2]
  • 1635 – slang, semen.[23]
  • 1738 – roe of either sex.[2]
  • 1769 – in roe, carrying eggs.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The mass of eggs in the ovary of a female fish, often eaten as food (hard roe): They served smoked trout roe on rye toast.[17][4][2]
  2. The milt or testes of a male fish (soft roe).[17][2]
  3. The eggs or ovaries of a crustacean such as a lobster.[17][4]

Word family

  • roed
  • soft roe
  • hard roe
  • roestone

Usage notes

The pattern of short dark stripes in the grain of wood such as mahogany, called roe since 1850, is traced by the OED to the deer, from the likeness to its markings,[2] while the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster place it under the fish eggs.[7][4] Richard Roe, formerly the fictitious defendant in a test action in law, is a name.[17]

References

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  11. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  17. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  20. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  21. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  22. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  23. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Related etymologies

  • spray · also from Middle Dutch
  • tackle · also from Middle Dutch
  • drum · also from Middle Dutch
  • leak · also from Middle Dutch
  • slot · also from Middle Dutch
  • pill · also from Middle Dutch
  • pad · also from Middle Dutch
  • whip · also from Middle Dutch
Cite this entry

“Roe.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/roe. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·