heath English · revision 39763

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=inherited|attested=Old English|origins=ine-pro *kaito-}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * /hiːθ/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[inh|enm|heth]], [[inh|ang|hǣþ|t=untilled land; heather]],^(AHD 2024)^(MWU 2024)^(Etymonline)^(Klein 1966) [[inh|gem-pro|*haiþī]].^(Etymonline)^(Kroonen 2013)^(Hoad 1986) Its cognates are [[osx|hētha|t=heath, heather]], [[dum|heide]], [[goh|heida|t=heather]], [[de|Heide|t=heath; heather]], [[non|heiðr|t=heath, moor]] and [[got|𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌸𐌹|tr=haiþi|t=field]].^(Etymonline)^(OED 2026)^(Barnhart 1988)^(SOED 2002) Etymonline thinks the Old Norse word influenced the English one.^(Etymonline) Kroonen explains the Germanic word as an archaic stem in *-ih₂-,^(Kroonen 2013) and its Celtic cognates are [[sga|cíad]], [[owl|coit]], [[cy|coed]] and [[br|koad]], all "wood, forest", from [[ine-pro|*kaito-|t=forest, uncultivated land]],^(Etymonline)^(Kroonen 2013)^(Hoad 1986)^(AHD 2024)^(Klein 1966) which also appears in Gaulish place names.^(Hoad 1986)^(Klein 1966) The OED notes the suggestion that [[la|būcētum|t=cow pasture]] is a further cognate.^(OED 2026)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Open, untilled land, waste ground: Old English, in the poem ''Exodus'';^(OED 2026)^(HTOED) Barnhart dates the English sense "open wasteland, especially with heather growing on it" to about 1330.^(Barnhart 1988) The plant sense came earlier: the Épinal Glossary (about 700) has the word for a shrub of open places.^(OED 2026)^(Barnhart 1988)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ Weekley thought it uncertain whether the land or the plant was the original sense,^(Weekley 1921) but Partridge thinks the plant was named from the land it grows on,^(Partridge 1966) and Ayto traces both to a Germanic noun for open, unploughed country.^(Ayto 2005) Since Old English the word has named the shrubs of the genus Erica, of which common heath or ling is the commonest;^(OED 2026)^(SOED 2002) in 1617 it was first extended with qualifying words to related plants.^(OED 2026) In Coverdale's Bible (1535) it translated a desert plant in two passages of Jeremiah, which the commentators identify variously.^(OED 2026)^(HTOED) Johnson (1755) gave the plant sense first, and only then "a place overgrown with heath".^(Johnson 1755) The word ''heather'' itself is probably unrelated: Ayto takes it from a Scottish and northern Middle English ''hadder'', reshaped after ''heath''.^(Ayto 2005) ''Heath'' also named a heath butterfly or moth from 1824.^(OED 2026)^(HTOED) In dialect the word formed many compounds, such as Hampshire and Somerset ''heath-cropper'', a small, half-starved pony left to graze on a common, and Devon and Cornwall ''heath-hounds'', a ghostly pack of hounds heard in the air.^(Wright 1898) The word ''heathen'' is often explained from it, as a dweller on the heath.^(Skeat 1911)^(Weekley 1921)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * Old English – open, untilled land.^(OED 2026)

+ * Old English – a plant of open places; the shrub Erica, heather.^(OED 2026)

+ * 1535 – a desert plant in the Bible.^(OED 2026)

+ * 1617 – other plants of the heath family.^(OED 2026)

+ * 1625 – (obsolete) a wild part of a garden.^(OED 2026)

+ * 1824 – a heath butterfly or moth.^(OED 2026)

+ * 1862 – verb, to cover with heath.^(OED 2026)

+

+ ==Modern meaning==

+ ===Noun===

+ # (chiefly British) An area of open, uncultivated land, usually with sandy or [[peat|alt=peaty]] soil and covered with low shrubs such as [[heather]]: ''They walked for hours across the heath.''^(Collins 2023)^(SOED 2002)^(MWU 2024)

+ # Any of various low evergreen [[shrub|alt=shrubs]] of the genus ''Erica'' and related genera, with small bell-shaped, usually pink or purple flowers, also called heather.^(Collins 2023)^(MWU 2024)

+ # Any of several plants that resemble heath; in Australia, plants of the genus ''Epacris''.^(Collins 2023)

+ # A heath [[butterfly]] or [[moth]].^(OED 2026)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[heathy]]

+ * [[heathberry]]

+ * [[heathland]]

+ * [[spike heath]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[heather]]

+ * [[heathen]]

+ * [[hoyden]]

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ ''One's native heath'' is a phrase for the place one comes from, one's home ground.^(SOED 2002)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}