socket

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English soket,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman soket (“spearhead, ploughshare”),^{[5][2][3][6][7]} a diminutive of Old French soc (“ploughshare”),^[5][2][3][6] which is from Vulgar Latin *soccus,^[2][3][1] probably borrowed from Gaulish,^[2][3][1] from Proto-Celtic *sukkos (“pig's snout”).^[1][2] It is cognate with Welsh swch (“ploughshare”), Cornish soch (“ploughshare”), Middle Irish soc (“ploughshare, hog's snout”) and Old Irish socc (“hog”),^[3][8][2][9] and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *suH- (“pig”),^[1][2] the source of Latin sūs (“swine”) and of English sow.^[2][7][3] In Anglo-Norman soket is recorded from the early 13th century for a ploughshare, the share-beam of a plough and an object shaped like a ploughshare,^[10] and an Anglo-Latin form sokettus (“spearhead”) is attested.^[11] Skeat instead took soc here in the sense of a wooden clog.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lance- or spearhead shaped like a ploughshare: about 1330, in Arthour and Merlin,^[5][3] which Barnhart dates probably before 1300.^[3] Etymonline gives about 1300.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Weekley notes that the sense moved from the blade to the hollow that holds it, comparing shaft.^[13] A hollow part made to receive something is first recorded before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, according to Barnhart,^[3] and in 1448 in the OED;^[5] the spearhead sense died out about 1600.^[5][11] By about 1440 it was the holder of a candle in a candlestick,^[5][2] the first sense Johnson (1755) gives.^[14] The anatomical sense, a hollow in which a bone, tooth or eye sits, dates from 1601, in Holland's translation of Pliny.^[5][2] The electrical socket appears in 1885,^[5][2] and socket wrench is recorded from 1837.^[2] The verb, to fit with or place in a socket, is from 1533;^[5][8] in golf both the noun (1887) and the verb (1911) refer to the heel of the club.^[5] In the play Mankind (about 1450) the word was already used in a bawdy sense.^[5][15] In Cumberland, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire socket was the money a man paid on marrying for his companions to drink his health.^[16][5]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – a spearhead shaped like a ploughshare (obsolete by 1600).^[5]
• before 1425 – a hollow part receiving something.^[3]
• c. 1440 – the part of a candlestick holding the candle.^[5]
• 1533 – verb, to place in or fit with a socket.^[5][8]
• 1601 – anatomy, a hollow in which a bone, tooth or eye is set.^[5]
• 1837 – socket wrench.^[2]
• 1885 – an electrical socket for a plug.^[5][2]
• 1887 – golf, the part of a club head into which the shaft fits.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hollow part or opening into which something fits or turns: a candle socket.^[8][9][5]
2. A device into which an electric plug or a bulb is fitted to make a connection; in British use, one fixed to a wall, called an outlet in North America.^[9][5]
3. (anatomy) A hollow in the body in which another part sits, as the eye in its orbit or a tooth in the jaw: an empty tooth socket.^[8][5]
4. A head for a wrench or spanner with a recess that fits over a nut or bolt.^[9]
5. (golf) The part of a club head into which the shaft is fitted.^[5]
6. (obsolete, 1330–1600) A spearhead shaped like a ploughshare.^[5][11]

Verb

1. To fit with a socket or place in a socket.^[8][5]
2. (golf) To hit the ball off the heel of the club.^[5]

Word family

• socketless
• ball-and-socket joint
• socket wrench

Related words

• sow
• swine

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
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)