spelt

Etymology

The grain is inherited from Middle English spelt, also spelte,^[2][3] inherited from Old English spelt,^[4][5][6] probably borrowed from Late Latin spelta,^{[7][3][5][8][6][9][10]} a word first recorded in the 5th century as a foreign term used in Pannonia, in the place of classical far (“spelt, grain”).^[11] The Late Latin word is itself probably Germanic,^[7][3][5][8] and Etymonline traces it perhaps to Proto-Germanic *spiltaz,^[12][1] from Proto-Indo-European *speld-, an extended form of *spel- (“to split, break off”), probably from the splitting of the husks in threshing.^[12][3] Merriam-Webster and Barnhart compare Old High German spaltan (“to split”) and spelte (“split piece of wood, splinter”).^[3][5] Related Germanic words are Old Saxon spelta, Middle Dutch spelte, Dutch spelt, spelza and spelta, German Spelz and Spelt, and West Frisian spjelte.^[11][5][8] The revised OED (2025) leaves open whether the Germanic word was inherited, from the base of spald and later reinforced by the Latin, or borrowed from the Latin or from another language of the same region.^[11] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead derive the Old English word from the Old Saxon one, and say that it was rare until the 16th century, when it was borrowed again from the Middle Dutch word;^[13][14][15] Etymonline too calls its history in English discontinuous.^[12] The Latin word is also the source of Italian spelta, Spanish espelta, Old French spelte and French épeautre.^[12][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Spelt wheat or its grain, glossing Latin planta and far: before 1000, in the glossaries of a single Old English manuscript, the Cleopatra Glossary.^[11][4][5]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that spelt was grown in England throughout the Old English period, but less than bread wheat, and was often not told apart from other wheats.^[11] In Middle English the word is rare: it appears in an Old English glossary copied about 1225 and in a 1393 account of provisions bought in southern Europe.^[2][11] It became more common in early modern herbals,^[11] but Weekley (1921) wrote that it was never in current English use.^[16] The grain is now grown again,^[11] and Merriam-Webster notes that both plant and grain are also called farro and speltz.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1000 – spelt wheat and its grain, in the Cleopatra Glossary.^[11][5]
• c. 1225 – spelt, glossing Latin planta, in a copy of Ælfric's Glossary.^[2]
• 1393 – spelt bought abroad as fodder.^[2][11]
• 1610 – attributive uses such as spelt-cake and spelt-corn.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. An ancient species of wheat (Triticum spelta), once widely grown in Europe and the Middle East, with ears that break up in threshing.^[3][18][11]
2. The grain of this plant, or flour made from it.^[3][11]

Related words

• spill
• spall

Usage notes

Spelt is also a past tense and past participle of spell, an inflected form, not a separate word.^[18] Several obsolete or dialect words had the same spelling: a noun for a thin piece of wood or metal, such as the board of a book or a plate on a shoe,^[11][13] and a verb meaning to husk or pound grain or to split beans (1570–1735),^[11][13] which Johnson (1755) called "a bad word".^[19]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
18. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.