Etymologically
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sturdy

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈstɜːdi/[1]
  • US: /ˈstɜrdi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sturdi, also stourdi and stordi,[2][1][3] a shortening[4][5][6] borrowed from Old French estourdi (“stunned, dazed, reckless, violent”), also estordi and esturdi,[7][8][9][2] now étourdi (“thoughtless, feather-brained”).[7][4] The Old French adjective is the past participle of estourdir (“to stun, daze”), now étourdir,[7][10][9] recorded as Anglo-Norman esturdir from 1084, already with the senses "to stun", "to daze" and "to make dizzy".[11] Its cognates are stordire, aturdir and aturdir.[7] They go back to Vulgar Latin *exturdiō, of obscure origin.[7][9] Many dictionaries derive it from ex- and turdus (“thrush”),[10][12][8][3][13] the thrush being taken as a type of drunkenness, as in the French saying “soûl comme une grive”, "drunk as a thrush";[7][6][13] Ayto and the AHD picture thrushes reeling after eating fermented grapes,[12][10] and Klein notes that tordo (“thrush”) also means a simpleton.[13][9] The OED finds this and the alternatives, a contraction of a form based on torpidus (“torpid”) or on turbidus (“turbid”), all "open to grave objection", and rejects a Germanic origin on phonological grounds.[7] Skeat left it of unknown origin.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Impetuously brave, fierce in combat; also recklessly violent, cruel; and of the face or speech, stern and harsh: all three in 1297, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle.[7][15] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300 and notes it as a surname from the late 12th century,[9] and the MED's first quotation is from King Horn, about 1300.[2]

Semantic evolution

The Old French figurative sense "violent, reckless" came into English first,[12] and Middle English used the word for "hard to manage, rebellious, disobedient" (before 1400) and of rough waves and raging streams (1426).[7][9] The modern sense grew out of these: of a person, "solidly built, strong and hardy" from the late 14th century, and of trees, walls and other things, "strong, stout" from about 1400.[9][12][4] Weekley traced the change through the sense "stubborn" (Latin contumax), and compared the shifts of nice, quaint and stout.[16] The older senses died out between the late 16th and the late 18th century;[7][4] Johnson (1755) still noted that the word was always used of men with "some disagreeable idea of coarseness or rudeness".[17] A sturdy beggar was an able-bodied beggar fit for work, from about 1400.[9][15] Plants have been called sturdy, meaning hardy, since the late 17th century, while since the late 18th century the word has been used figuratively for blunt, resolute and vigorous people and views.[4][15] The primary sense "giddy" is recorded only from before 1642, of sheep with the brain disease called sturdy (from 1570), and survives in dialect;[7][15][4] in the north of England and Scotland the word also meant stubborn or sulky, and stupid.[18]

Timeline

  • 1297 – brave and fierce in combat; recklessly violent; stern, harsh.[7]
  • c. 1386 – of a movement or blow, furious, violent, in Chaucer.[7]
  • before 1400 – hard to manage, rebellious.[7]
  • c. 1400 – of things, strong, stout; a sturdy beggar.[9]
  • 1426 – of waves or a storm, violent, rough (obsolete).[7]
  • 1570 – noun, a brain disease of sheep.[15]
  • before 1642 – giddy, of sheep with the disease.[7]
  • 1664 – obstinate in opinion (obsolete by 1782).[7]
  • 1695 – of a plant, hardy.[15]
  • 1775 – of people and their views, robust, resolute.[15]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Strongly built and hard to damage; stout, solid: a sturdy wooden table.[8][19][4]
  2. Of a person or animal, strong, solidly built and robust; healthy and vigorous.[19][4]
  3. Of a plant, hardy.[8][4]
  4. Firm and determined; resolute, uncompromising: sturdy independence.[4][8]
  5. (obsolete) Brave and fierce in combat; recklessly violent.[8][7][4]
  6. (archaic) Hard to manage; rebellious or obstinate.[8][7][4]

Noun

  1. Gid, a brain disease of sheep and cattle that makes them dizzy.[8][15][4]

Word family

  • sturdily
  • sturdiness
  • unsturdy
  • thrush

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  12. ^ 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
  13. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  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. ^ 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