"H" Word Origins

hausen

Origin

From German Hausen.

Hauser

German

Borrowed from German Hauser.

hautbois

Origin

Borrowed from French hautbois. Doublet of oboe and hautboy.

hautboy

Origin

From Middle French hautbois. Doublet of oboe and hautbois.

haute

French

A direct borrowing of the French word for "high," most familiar from phrases like haute couture and haute cuisine.

Havana

Origin

Named after Havana, the capital of Cuba, whose name comes from the Taíno word sabana ("savannah") via the name of a local chief.

have

Old English

From Old English habban, going back to a very old Germanic root meaning "to hold" or "seize" — related to the English word "heave."

haven

Old English

From Old English hæfen ("harbour, port"), related to German Hafen and Dutch haven, all pointing back to a Germanic word for the open sea.

haver

Origin

Borrowed from Scots haiver.

Haverford

Origin

Derived from Haverfordwest in Wales.

havering

Origin

From haver + -ing.

haversack

Origin

From French havresac, from Low German Haaversack and/or German Habersack, Hafersack (literally “oat-sack”), from Hafer + Sack. Compare also Dutch haverzak.

haves

Middle English

From have + -s, from Middle English heven, hebben, from Old English hebban, from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to take up, lift”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂pyéti, from the root *kap-. See have for details.

haviour

Origin

From Middle English havour, from Anglo-Norman aveyr, Old French aveir.

havishamesque

Origin

From Havisham + -esque (suffix meaning ‘in the style or manner of’ forming adjectives), after the character Miss Havisham from the novel Great Expectations (1860–1861) by the English author Charles Dickens (1812–1870), a wealthy spinster once jilted at the altar, who lives in a ruined mansion and always wears her wedding dress.

havoc

Old French

From the Old French battle cry "crier havok" — a signal for soldiers to seize plunder — ultimately from a word for a hook or pruning tool used for grabbing loot.

haw

Old English

The fruit sense comes from Old English haga, related to "hedge"; the hesitation sound and turn command are separate, older interjections imitating natural sounds.

Hawaii

Origin

From Hawaiian Hawaiʻi, tracing back to an old Polynesian word for an ancestral homeland.

Hawaiian

Origin

From Hawaii plus the suffix -an, used to form adjectives and nationality nouns, as in "American" or "Canadian."

Hawes

Old Norse

From Old Norse hals (“neck”).

hawk

Old English

From Old English hafoc, from a very old Germanic word possibly meaning "to seize" — hawks being named for how they catch their prey.

hawker

German

Likely from Low German or Dutch hoker, related to the English word "huckster," both describing a street seller.

hawking

Origin

Variant of Hawkin

hawkish

English

From hawk, the bird of prey, long used figuratively for a person who favours war, with the adjective ending -ish.

Hawley

Old English

Two main origins: * The village in Hampshire is from Old English heall (“hall, dwelling, house”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”). Equivalent to hall + -ley (“lea”). * The village in Kent is from Old English hāliġ (“holy, sacred”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”). Equivalent to holy + -ley (“lea”).

hawser

Origin

From Middle English hauser, haucer, from Anglo-Norman haucer, from Vulgar Latin *altiāre (“to raise”), derived from Latin altus (“high”). Altered in English by mistaken association with hawse and perhaps haul. Compare French aussière, haussière.

hawthorn

Old English

From Old English hagaþorn, literally "hedge-thorn" — the same "haw" as in "haw" (an enclosure) plus "thorn."

Hawthorne

Origin

Variant of Hawthorn.

hay

Old English

From Old English hieg/hig, related to the verb "hew" (to cut down) — hay is literally "the cut stuff."

Hayashi

Japanese

Borrowed from Japanese 林 (Hayashi).

Hayat

Arabic

Borrowed from Arabic حَيَاة (ḥayāh). This surname is mostly found in Pakistan.

Hayato

Japanese

Borrowed from Japanese はやと (Hayato).

Hayden

Old English

From Old English heg ("hay") plus denu ("valley") — originally a place name before it became a personal name.

Haydn

German

Borrowed from German Haydn.

haydon

Origin

From either Old English hīeġ (“hay”) or ġehæġ (“enclosure”) + denu (“valley”).

haye

Origin

From Dutch haai (“shark”) or West Flemish haaie (formerly haeye), from the Old Norse hái, a short form of hákarl (“shark”) (a compound of há- (“marks fish of the shark kind”) + karl (“a man”)). The German Hai, the Swedish haj and the Danish haj are from the same source.

Hayes

Old English

As an English surname, from Old English words for brushwood or an enclosure; as an Irish surname, an anglicised form of Ó hAodha, "descendant of Aodh."

Hayley

Old English

Localities in England, from Old English hēg (“hay”) + lēah (“wood, clearing”). Equivalent to hay + -ley (“lea”).

hayride

Origin

A simple compound of "hay" and "ride."

Hays

Origin

Spelling variant of Hayes, which has multiple origins.

hayseed

Origin

From hay + seed.

haystack

Middle English

From Middle English hey stak, simply "hay" plus "stack."

hayward

Origin

From "hay" (enclosure) plus "ward" (guardian) — someone who guarded the hedges and fields.

haywire

Origin · 1905

From logging camps around 1905, where flimsy equipment held together with hay-bale wire was called a "haywire outfit" — the phrase "go haywire" grew from that image of things falling apart or tangling unpredictably.

Haywood

Old English

From Old English ġehæg (“fence, enclosure”) + wudu (“wood”).

hazard

Old French

From Old French hasart, a dice game, ultimately from Arabic az-zahr ("the dice") — the sense of "risk" grew out of gambling.

hazardous

French

From French hasardeux, built on "hazard" plus the adjective ending "-ous."

haze

Old Norse · 1600

First recorded in the late 1600s; possibly a back-formation from "hazy," itself linked to an Old Norse word for grey.