thatch

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English thecchen, later thacchen,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English þeccan (“to cover, conceal”),^[3][2][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *þakjaną,^[3][8] itself derived from *þaką (“roof”),^[8][9][6] from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”).^{[3][2][10][5]} The regular modern form would be thetch; the OED and Barnhart think the vowel came from thack.^[6][2] The noun is inherited from Middle English thacche, an alteration of thak after the verb,^{[10][2][6][11]} inherited from Old English þæc (“roof, thatching material”).^[3][2][7] Cognates of the verb are Old Frisian thekka, Old Saxon thekkian, Dutch dekken, German decken and Old Norse þekja, and of the noun Dutch dak, German Dach and þak.^[2][3][5] Outside Germanic the root gives Latin tegō (“to cover”) and tēgula (“tile”), Ancient Greek στέγος (stégos, “roof”) and τέγος (tégos, “roof”), Old Irish tech (“house”) and Lithuanian stógas (“roof”).^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To cover: about 725, as þeccan in Beowulf.^[2][6] Bosworth–Toller records both covering an object with something and serving as a covering.^[7] þæc meant both a roof and the material of a roof.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Ayto stresses that the word is at root about covering, and that the idea of straw came later.^[12] Etymonline notes that in late Old English the verb had come to mean covering the roof of a house.^[3] The verb in the modern sense is recorded in Piers Plowman (1377) and in Trevisa (1398),^[6] and the noun from before 1325 in Barnhart^[2] or from 1398 in the OED.^[6] The word has replaced the older noun thack in literary use,^[6] and Weekley and Dictionary.com note thack as a dialect form.^[13][14] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as straw laid on a house to keep out the weather.^[15]

Figurative use of the verb, to cover as if with thatch, dates from 1589.^[6] Dekker compared hair to thatching in 1609,^[16] and the noun was used humorously for the hair of the head from before 1634.^[6][3] It was also used of other plants and plant matter: tall coarse grass in America (1622), the palms used for thatching in the West Indies (1866) and, chiefly in the United States, the mat of plant debris on a lawn (1955).^[6] In dialect as wet as thatch was a simile in Cheshire,^[17] and to lift the thatch meant to raise the roof with noise.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 725 – þeccan, to cover, in Beowulf.^[2][6]
• before 1325 – noun, thach, thatching material.^[2] The OED's first record is from 1398.^[6]
• 1377 – intransitive, to do thatching, in Piers Plowman.^[6]
• 1398 – to roof a house with straw or reeds, in Trevisa.^[6]
• 1589 – figurative, to cover as if with thatch.^[6]
• 1622 – American, tall coarse grass.^[6]
• before 1634 – figurative covering, often the hair of the head.^[6]
• 1693 – a roof of this material; a thatched dwelling.^[6]
• 1866 – palms used for thatching, in the West Indies.^[6]
• 1955 – a matted layer of plant debris on a lawn.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Plant material such as straw, reeds or palm leaves, used for roofing.^{[10][18][4][6]}
2. A roof made of this material.^[18][4][6]
3. Something resembling this, especially a thick growth of hair on the head.^[10][18][6]
4. A matted layer of dead grass and other plant debris on a lawn.^[10][4][6]
5. Any of various palms whose leaves are used for roofing.^[18][6]
6. Tall, coarse grass, in American use.^[6][11]

Verb

1. To cover with or as if with thatch: The crofter thatched the barn with heather.^{[10][18][4][6]}
2. To do thatching work.^[4][6]

Word family

• thatcher
• thatchy
• thatchless
• dethatch
• unthatch
• rethatch
• thatching

Related words

• thack
• deck
• detect
• protect
• tile
• toga
• integument

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
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. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins