smithy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English smithi,^[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse smiðja,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} or, as the OED puts it, from early Scandinavian, comparing the Old Icelandic form with Norwegian smidja and Swedish smedja.^[7] It comes from Proto-Germanic *smiþjǭ,^[1][8][9] derived from *smiþaz, the ancestor of smith,^[8][10] which Köbler connects with Proto-Indo-European *smēi- (“to carve, hew”).^[9] The cognates are Old Frisian smithe, Middle Low German smede, Middle Dutch smisse, Dutch smidse, Old High German smitta and German Schmiede.^[11][10][8] Old English had the native cognate Old English smiþþe,^[12][3][10] and Collins and the Shorter Oxford start the word from it, the latter saying that it was replaced in Middle English by the Norse forms;^[13][11] the OED notes that the loanword can be hard to tell from its inherited counterpart in Middle English.^[7] The verb, recorded from 1733, is a conversion of the noun.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The workshop of a smith: before 1250, in the Ancrene Riwle, where news is said to come Fram milne & fram cheping, from smiðie, from mill and market and smithy; another manuscript of the text has the native smiððe.^[7][2] Etymonline has about 1200,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1250–1300.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its central sense; the Middle English Dictionary already records figurative use, and compounds such as smithy tongs.^[2] Forms with a plosive, such as smiddy, are the usual ones in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.^[7] From 1565 the word also named a forge for making iron into blooms.^[7] The American sense "a blacksmith", from 1847, perhaps arose from a misreading of Longfellow's lines of 1840: "Under a spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands."^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as the shop of a smith.^[15] In English dialect, in Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire, a smithy could also be any place, especially a low or dirty one, or a home; in Aberdeenshire, to come past the smithy was to have a sharp temper.^[16] The verb, first in Theobald's Shakespeare of 1733, is now chiefly figurative,^[7] although the Shorter Oxford dates the transitive verb to Middle English.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1250 – a smith's workshop, a forge.^[7][2]
• 1565 – a forge for making iron into blooms.^[7]
• 1733 – verb, to make by forging; intransitive, to work at a forge (obsolete by 1920).^[7]
• 1804 – the art or craft of a smith.^[7]
• 1847 – in the United States, a blacksmith.^[7][11]
• 1866 – verb, to weld together by forging.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The workshop of a smith, especially a blacksmith; a forge: Sparks flew from the door of the old smithy.^[7][5][13]
2. (US) A blacksmith.^[7][5][11]
3. (rare) The art or craft of a smith.^[11][7]
4. (historical) A forge in which iron is made into blooms; a bloomery.^[7]

Verb

1. To make by forging, or, now chiefly figuratively, to shape or create: a phrase smithied by a poet.^[7][11][5]
2. To weld together by forging.^[7]
3. (obsolete, 1733–1920) To work at a forge.^[7][11]

Related words

• smith
• smithery

Usage notes

In American underworld slang a Smithy is a firearm made by Smith & Wesson, recorded in 1990.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ 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)
17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com