Where does “blockhouse” come from?
I need to work through this etymology chain carefully, but I notice there's a significant problem: the chain provided doesn't actually form a coherent path to "blockhouse."
The chain lists: English house → Middle English hus → Middle English -en → Middle Dutch blok → Old Dutch blok → Proto-Indo-European éǵh₂ → Proto-Indo-European bhulg'- → Proto-Indo-European bhelg'-
This chain seems to conflate two different etymologies:
1. "house" (from hus, éǵh₂, etc.)
2. "block" (from blok, bhulg'-, bhelg'-, etc.)
But the headword is "blockhouse," which would be a compound of both elements. The chain as presented doesn't show how these two elements combine or how they both contribute to the modern word.
Additionally, I'm asked not
blockhouse (English): A sturdy military fortification, often of...
Definitions
- A sturdy military fortification, often of...
Ancestry of “blockhouse”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | block | A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece... |
| 2 | French | Bloc | — |
| 3 | Middle French | bloc | a considerable piece of something heavy, block |
| 4 | Old French | bloc | log, block |
| 5 | Dutch | blok | a block; a street block; a political bloc |
| 6 | Middle Dutch | blok | treetrunk |
| 7 | Old Dutch | blok | log |
| 8 | Proto-West Germanic | blokk | — |
| 9 | Proto-Germanic | blukką | block, log |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | bhulg'- | — |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | bhelg'- | thick plank, beam, pile, prop |