Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “meetinghouse” come from?

Meetinghouse derives from English meet and English house, built on Middle English -en (verbal suffix) and Middle English -en (nominal suffix), tracing through Latin meta and Proto-Indo-European med- meaning to measure or consider.

meetinghouse (English): A building where people meet for a purpose; A...

Definitions

  1. A building where people meet for a purpose; A...

Ancestry of “meetinghouse”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1EnglishmeetingThe act of persons or things that meet; A...
2Middle Englishmeeting—
3Old Englishmēting—
4Old Englishmētanto meet, find, find out, fall in with, encounter,...
5Proto-West Germanicmōtijanto meet
6Proto-Germanicmōtijanąto meet, encounter
7Proto-Germanicmōtąmeeting
8Proto-Indo-Europeanmeh₂d-to be wet, to become wet; to meet, approach,...
Every word from Proto-Indo-European meh₂d- →