weevil

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wevel, also wivil,^[2][3] inherited from Old English wifel (“beetle”),^[4][5][6][2] from Proto-Germanic *wibilaz,^[1] which Barnhart, Etymonline and Ayto write *webilaz.^[7][5][8] Its cognates are Old Saxon goldwivil (“glowworm”), Old High German wibil (“beetle, chafer”), German Wiebel and Old Norse tordyfill (“dung beetle”),^[4][5][9] and the same root gave Old English wibba (“beetle, glowworm”).^[4] Further afield are Lithuanian vabalas (“beetle”) and Latvian vabuolis,^[7][10] which Barnhart, Klein and Etymonline trace to Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to weave, also to move quickly”).^[7][10][5] The OED leaves open whether the Germanic base meant "to move about briskly", as in wave, or is that of weave, after the threads spun for the larva's case;^[4] Ayto likewise asks whether the insect was the "weaving" creature or the "quick mover",^[8] the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English choose "move briskly",^[9][11] and Weekley chooses weave, from the larva's enclosure.^[12] Hoad and Ayto doubt the line of descent: Hoad finds no continuity shown from the Old English noun and thinks the Middle English form probably came from Middle Low German wevel, perhaps through trade with the Low Countries, and Ayto also thinks it probably borrowed.^[13][8] The OED explains the vowel as the regular Middle English ē from Old English i lengthened in an open syllable, as in beetle.^[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A beetle of any kind: in Old English, in the Corpus Glossary according to the OED,^[4] and before 800 according to Barnhart.^[7] Bosworth–Toller's quotations have it glossing Latin cantarus and naming the insect in a riddle: ðone wé wifel nemnaþ.^[14] The Middle English form is first recorded in 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The Old English word covered beetles in general.^[4][9] Middendorff lists charter place names such as wifelesford and suspects that it was also a personal name.^[15] Etymonline says the sense narrowed by the 15th century to the long-snouted beetles that bore into plants,^[5] and the Middle English Dictionary's quotations of 1440 and 1455 concern a pest of malt: the Promptorium Parvulorum equates it with the malte boode.^[2][14] In the 16th and 17th centuries some writers confused it with weasel, writing wesell or weezel for the insect.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a grub".^[16] A figurative use appears in 1598, and the Shorter Oxford records the rare sense of a despicable person from the late 16th century.^[4][9] From 1789 the name was applied to other insects and their larvae.^[4] English dialects had many forms: weeble in Shropshire, wibble in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, wule in Lincolnshire and yule in south Hampshire.^[17]

Timeline

• before 800 – wifel, a beetle of any kind.^[7][4]
• 1440 – wevel, spelled wevyl, a malt weevil.^[2][7]
• 1598 – in a figurative context.^[4]
• 1789 – applied to other insects or their larvae.^[4]
• 1866 – as a collective singular.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of numerous small beetles with a long, usually downward-curving snout, whose larvae feed inside grain, nuts and fruit or bore into bark: Weevils had got into every sack of flour in the storeroom.^[3][18][9]
2. Any of various beetles of the family Bruchidae, whose larvae live in the seeds of legumes, such as the pea weevil and the bean weevil.^[18]
3. Another insect or larva known by this name.^[4]
4. (rare) A despicable person.^[9][4]
5. (obsolete) In Old English, a beetle of any kind.^[4][9]

Word family

• weevily
• boll weevil

Related words

• weave
• wave
• web

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 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 n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
15. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins