thaw

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English thauen, also thawen and thowen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English þāwian (“to thaw (transitive)”),^[2][5][6][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *þawjaną.^[1][8] Hoad reconstructs the West Germanic form as *þawōjan, and Barnhart a Proto-Germanic *þawōjanan.^[9][4] The word is cognate with Middle Low German doien, Dutch dooien, Old High German douwen (tauen in modern German), Old Norse þeyja, Swedish töa and Danish tø.^[7][4][6][9] The OED notes that the late Middle English and Scots form thowe does not fit the Old English verb and seems to need an unrecorded earlier by-form, and calls the further history obscure;^[7] Hoad likewise gives it as of unknown origin.^[9] Others compare words for melting outside Germanic: Etymonline, following Watkins, derives it from Proto-Indo-European *tā- (“to melt, dissolve”),^[6] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster list as possible cognates Welsh toddi (“to melt”), Latin tābeō (“to waste away, melt”), tābēs (“wasting disease”) and Ancient Greek τήκω (tḗkō, “to melt”).^[4][3] Orel finds the comparison with Ossetic and with Proto-Slavic *tajati (“to melt”) not exact but very probable.^[8] The noun, first recorded around 1400, is from the verb.^[6][4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To melt something frozen, used transitively: in the Old English Leechdoms, the wind called Zephyrus is said to drive away and thaw every winter (tówyrpþ and ðáwaþ ǽlcne winter).^[5][7] Barnhart dates the Old English verb to about 1000.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive use, of ice or snow melting, is recorded from the early 14th century,^[6][7] and Middle English used the verb chiefly impersonally (it thaws).^[2][7] The noun followed around 1400 for the melting of snow and ice, and for a spell of warm weather that causes it.^[6][4] From the late 16th century both verb and noun were used of people losing their coldness or reserve: the verb from 1582, in Stanyhurst's Virgil, and the noun from the 1590s.^[7][6] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "liquefaction of any thing congealed; warmth such as liquifies congelation", quoting Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing.^[11] The noun's sense of a becoming less cold or formal is recorded from 1840,^[7] and the political sense, a relaxation of hostility or control, from 1950, an image from the Cold War;^[6][7] the OED applies it especially to the easing in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death.^[7] In Scotland and northern England the word was also spoken thow, with a past tense thew in Yorkshire,^[12][10] and Merriam-Webster still records thew as a dialect past tense and thawn as an archaic past participle.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – to melt ice or snow (transitive), in the Leechdoms.^[5][7][4]
• c. 1325 – intransitive, of ice or snow, to melt; impersonal it thaws.^[7][2]
• c. 1400 – noun, the melting of ice and snow after a frost.^[6][4] The OED dates the noun to 1412.^[7]
• 1582 – to soften a person's feelings, to break down coldness and reserve.^[7]
• 1590s – noun, figurative, a becoming less frozen.^[6] The OED's first record is in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (before 1616).^[7]
• 1598 – of a person, to become less cold or reserved.^[7]
• 1840 – noun, a lessening of coldness or formality between people.^[7]
• 1950 – noun, a relaxation of political hostility or restriction.^[7][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of ice, snow or something frozen, to melt or become soft through warming: The ice on the pond thawed by noon.^[13][3][14]
2. To make something frozen melt or become unfrozen; to defrost: Thaw the chicken overnight in the fridge.^[13][3][14]
3. it thaws: the weather becomes warm enough for snow and ice to melt.^[13][14][7]
4. Of a part of the body, to become warm again and stop feeling numb; to warm something stiff with cold.^[14][3]
5. To become friendlier, more relaxed or less reserved; to make someone so.^[13][14][7]

Noun

1. The act or process of thawing.^[13][3]
2. A period of weather warm enough to melt ice and snow: an early March thaw.^[13][3][14]
3. A becoming friendlier or less reserved.^[3][7]
4. A relaxation of political control or hostility, especially between states: the post-war thaw.^[3][7][6]

Word family

• thawless
• rethaw
• unthawed
• silver thaw

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 i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e f Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press