Etymologically
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weather

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 18:30. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈweð.ə/, US /ˈweð.ɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English weder,[2][3] inherited from Old English weder (“air, sky; breeze, storm”),[2][4] from Proto-Germanic *wedra- (“wind, weather”),[2][4] probably from the base of wind.[5][6] Watkins derives it from Proto-Indo-European *we-dhro-, a suffixed form of the root *we- “to blow”, with Lithuanian vėtra “storm” and Old Church Slavonic vedro “good weather”,[2][4] but Boutkan finds this formally problematic and only the Slavic word a likely cognate.[2] It is cognate with Old Saxon wedar, Old Norse veðr, Dutch weder, weer and German Wetter “storm, weather”.[2][4] The change of d to th began in the late 15th century and was established by the end of the 16th, as in father and gather.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English, about 725 in Beowulf,[4][7] where it meant air, sky, a breeze or a storm.[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “bad weather, storm” is from about 1122,[7] and violent wind with heavy rain, now dialect and nautical, from Old English.[7] In nautical use from the late 14th century it meant “toward the wind, windward”, opposed to lee, and as a noun the direction the wind is blowing from.[2][5] Old English wederian meant “to be weather”,[2][6] and Middle English wederen, “to expose to the open air”, is from 1440.[4] The figurative sense, “to come through safely”, from a ship riding out a storm, is from 1655,[4][2] and “to wear away by exposure to the weather” from 1757.[2][4] Etymonline notes that Greek and Latin had no generic word for weather: Latin tempestas first meant “time”.[2] Weathercock is from the 13th century.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English weder.[4]
  • c. 1122 – bad weather.[7]
  • 13th century – weathercock.[5]
  • late 14th century – nautical, windward.[2]
  • 1440 – verb, to expose to air.[4]
  • 1655 – verb, to come through safely.[4]
  • 1757 – verb, to wear away by exposure.[2][4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The state of the atmosphere at a time and place, as to heat, wind, rain and so on.
  2. Bad or stormy weather.

Verb

  1. To come through safely; to survive: weather the storm.
  2. To wear away, change or discolor by exposure to the weather.
  3. (nautical) To pass to the windward of.

Adjective

  1. (nautical) Facing the wind; windward.

Word family

  • weatherer

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press