Where does “forget” come from?
Forget comes from Old English forġietan, with the prefix for- intensifying the verb ġietan, meaning to get or obtain, thus originally denoting a loss or failure to get.
forget (English): To lose remembrance of; To unintentionally not...
Definitions
- To lose remembrance of; To unintentionally not...
Ancestry of “forget”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | forgeten | — |
| 2 | Old English | forġietan | to forget |
| 3 | Proto-West Germanic | fragetan | to lose hold of; to forget |
| 4 | Proto-West Germanic | fra- | forms verbs with the sense of "away from" or "off... |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | fra- | off, away; completely, fully, up |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | pro- | toward, forward |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | por- | to give birth; forward, through; going, passage |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | per- | before, in front; first; to go through |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | pr̥tós | passed , crossed |