Trade, money & letters

pound

Romans weighed in lībra pondō, 'a pound by weight'; the Germanic peoples took the word pondō and it became the English pound of weight and, later, of money. German Pfund went on to Yiddish, Polish and Russian as funt, and Dutch pond reached Edo Japan.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Latin to Gothic

From Latin to Old High German, Middle High German, German

From Middle High German to Yiddish

From Middle High German to Polish, Russian

From Latin to Middle Dutch, Dutch, Japanese

From Old English to Old Norse, Swedish

200 BCELatin

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

The road to English

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Export “pound”

Embed “pound”

Save “pound”