Where does “driveway” come from?
Driveway derives from English drive and way, with drive tracing back through Old English drifan to Proto-Germanic drifanan, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dreybʰ-, meaning to turn or twist.
driveway (English): Short private road that leads to a house or...
Definitions
- Short private road that leads to a house or...
Ancestry of “driveway”, step by step
driveway traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English drive
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | drive | Motivation to do or achieve something; ability... |
| 2 | English | -er | A person or thing that does an action indicated... |
| 3 | Middle English | -er | agentive suffix; agent noun suffix |
| 4 | Old French | -er | Alternative form of -ier, verbal suffix;... |
| 5 | Latin | -āre | first conjugation |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -āō | Forms primarily denominative verbs |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -eh₂yéti | Creates iterative/ frequentative/ intensive... |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | yé- | — |
| 10 | Chichewa | iye | he, she |