Where does “merciful” come from?
Merciful comes from Middle English mercyful, which combined mercy with the suffix -ful to denote possessing or characterized by mercy.
merciful (English): showing mercy
Definitions
- showing mercy
Ancestry of “merciful”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | merciful | — |
| 2 | Middle English | mercy | Alternative form of mercien |
| 3 | Middle English | -ful | Appended to nouns to form adjectives denoting... |
| 4 | Old English | -ful | full of; -ful |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | -fullaz | -ful |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | fullaz | full; the whole, the entire |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | pl̥h₁nós | full |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | pleh₁- | to fill |