soot

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sot, later soot,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English sōt,^{[6][7][8][9][10]} from Proto-Germanic *sōtą,^{[1][7][9][11]} literally "what settles".^[7][9][2] It is cognate with Old Norse sót, Middle Dutch soet, Middle Low German sōt, Swedish sot and Danish sod.^[6][2][9] Orel derives the Germanic noun from the verb *setjanan, and takes it, like Old Irish sūide, Lithuanian súodžiai and Proto-Slavic *sadja, all meaning soot, as a formation with the long vowel of Proto-Indo-European *sōd-,^[12][2] the root Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”),^{[7][11][2][5]} which also gave sit and settle.^[11] Klein and Etymonline add Breton huzel,^[5][7] and Partridge also lists Welsh huddygl.^[13] Skeat, Weekley and Partridge treat the link with sit as only probable or possible.^[14][15][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A black deposit left by burning: in Old English, before 800 in Barnhart,^[2] with the OED's first quotation from the Corpus Glossary.^[6] Bosworth–Toller has it glossing Latin fūlīgō, and in the medical Leechdoms mixed with other ingredients.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the word had already narrowed to fine black particles from burning by the time it reached English, from a sense of whatever settles on a surface;^[11] Klein compares the sense development of sediment.^[5] In Middle English it served in set comparisons of blackness or bitterness,^[3] and Chaucer uses it once.^[16] The adjective sooty is recorded from before 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale.^[6][2] Johnson (1755) defines it as condensed or embodied smoke, with a quotation from Bacon on spreading it over a field as compost and another from Howell on sweeping it out of chimneys.^[17] The agricultural use also shows in the verb, recorded from 1707 for sprinkling or manuring with soot.^[6] A transferred sense, blackness or darkness, appears in 1789.^[6] English dialects built compounds on it, such as soot-man, a sweep, and soot-poke, a sweep's bag.^[18]

Timeline

• before 800 – black deposit from burning, as Old English sōt.^[2][6]
• before 1200 – Middle English sot.^[2]
• c. 1385 – the spelling soot.^[2]
• 1597 – a substance of a sooty look or nature.^[6]
• 1601 – a particular kind of soot, with a and a plural.^[6]
• 1602 – verb, to smear or foul with soot, in Marston.^[6][2][4]
• 1707 – verb, to sprinkle or manure with soot.^[6]
• 1789 – blackness, darkness.^[6]
• 1903 – verb, to choke with a sooty deposit, sometimes with up.^[6]
• 1906 – a flake of soot.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fine black powder, chiefly carbon, produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, wood, oil or other fuel, which rises in smoke and clings to the inside of a chimney.^[19][4][6]
2. A flake of soot; a smut.^[6]
3. A sooty black colour.^[4]

Verb

1. To cover or foul with soot: The old lamp had sooted the ceiling.^[19][4][6]
2. To sprinkle or manure with soot.^[6]
3. To fill or choke with a sooty deposit, sometimes with up.^[6]

Word family

• sootless
• sootlike
• sooty

Related words

• sit
• settle
• sediment
• sedentary

Usage notes

The OED records a pronunciation /sʌt/, formerly common, which Smart in 1836 no longer allowed to "the best speakers", and notes that American dictionaries also give /suːt/.^[6] The OED also has an obsolete soot meaning "sweet", from the Old English variant swōt of sweet, used as an adjective and noun until the 17th century, and as an adverb until 1579;^[6] the English Dialect Dictionary has a separate Lancashire soot, the rot in sheep.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b 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)
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins