Animals, plants & weather

sky

Old Norse ský meant 'cloud', and still does in Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian; in English it first meant clouds too, then the whole vault overhead, pushing native heaven into the high and poetic register. English has since lent it to Japanese in compounds like 'skydiving'.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Proto-Germanic to Old English

From Old Norse to Icelandic

From Old Norse to Faroese

From Old Norse to Swedish

From Old Norse to Danish, Norwegian

From Middle English to Scots

From English to Japanese

500 BCEProto-Germanic

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

The road to English

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