"H" Word Origins

harbor

Old English

From Old English herebeorg ("shelter, lodgings"), from roots meaning "army" and "protection" — literally a safe place for a group to camp.

hard

Old English

From Old English heard, from a very old Germanic and Indo-European root meaning "strong" or "powerful" — the same root behind the Greek word for "strength."

hardball

Origin

From hard plus ball, originally distinguishing regular baseball from the softer-ball game of softball.

hardcore

Origin · 1930

From hard plus core, literally "hard at the core" — first used in the 1930s and adopted as slang for intensity by the 1950s.

harden

Middle English

From Middle English hardenen, built from hard plus the verb-forming suffix -en.

hardhead

Origin

From hard + head.

hardheaded

Origin · 1400

Formed from hard + headed, first recorded around the mid-15th century.

hardhearted

Origin

From hard + hearted.

hardihood

Origin

From hardy + -hood. Compare Dutch hardigheid (“hardness, callousness”), German Hartigkeit (“hardness”).

hardiness

Origin

From Middle English hardynesse; equivalent to hardy + -ness.

Harding

Germanic

Originally a patronymic from Hardy or from Germanic compound names with the element *hard ("hard").

hardline

Origin

From hard + line.

hardly

Old English

From Old English heardlīċe, built from hard + -ly; it originally meant "boldly" or "without ease" before narrowing to today's sense of "barely."

hardman

Origin

A compound of hard + man.

hardness

Old English

From Old English heardnes, built from hard + the suffix -ness.

hards

Origin

From Middle English herdes, hurdes, plural of herde (“piece of hards”), from Old English heordan (“hards of flax, tow”), weak feminine plural of heorde (“headhair”), from Proto-West Germanic *heʀdā, from Proto-Germanic *hezdǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kes- (“to comb, card”).

hardship

Middle English

From Middle English hardshipe, built from hard + -ship.

hardstone

Origin

From hard + stone.

hardsub

Origin

A blend of "hard" (fixed, permanent) and "subtitle."

hardtack

Origin

From hard + tack.

hardware

English

A compound of hard and ware, originally naming goods made of metal; the computing sense was formed by analogy, and software was coined afterwards as its opposite.

hardway

Origin

From hard + way, i.e. the difficult way to achieve something.

Hardwick

Old English

From Old English heord ("herd") + wīċ ("village").

Hardwicke

Old English

From Old English heord ("herd") + wīc ("village"); shares its origin with Hardwick.

hardwired

Origin

From hard + wired, originally an electronics term for circuits fixed by physical wiring rather than programmable logic.

hardwood

Origin

From hard + wood. Despite the name, it refers to the type of tree rather than how physically hard the wood actually is — some hardwoods are softer than some softwoods.

hardworking

Origin

From hard + working.

hardworking

Origin

From hard + working.

hardy

Old French

From Old French hardi ("bold, daring"), ultimately linked to the Germanic root behind the word "hard."

hare

Old English

From Old English hara, ultimately from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "grey," describing the animal's coat colour.

harebell

Origin

From Middle English harebelle, equivalent to hare + bell.

harebrained

Origin

From hare + brained, likening a foolish idea to the supposedly erratic behaviour of hares.

harem

Arabic

Borrowed via Ottoman Turkish from Arabic ḥaram, meaning something forbidden or a sanctuary, related to the word haram.

Hargrove

Old English

From English place names such as Hargrave, ultimately from Old English hār ("hoar") + grǣfe ("grove").

Hari

Sanskrit

Borrowed from Sanskrit हरि (hari).

harish

Origin

From hare + the suffix -ish.

Harishchandra

Sanskrit

From Sanskrit हरिश्चन्द्र (hariścandra, "having golden splendour").

hark

Old English

From Old English root related to "hear," with an added intensive ending, making it essentially an old word for "listen closely."

Harken

Origin

Borrowed from North German Harken.

Harkness

Old English

A topographic name, from Old English hearg ("altar; temple") + næs ("headland").

Harlan

Old English

An American contraction of Harland, from Old English hara ("hare") + land ("land").

Harlee

Origin

A fanciful spelling variant of Harley.

harlequin

French

From the stock character Harlequin in Italian commedia dell'arte, whose name traces back through French to an older, obscure figure once linked to a legendary demon or spirit.

harlequinade

Origin

From French arlequinade.

Harley

Old English · 1903

Short for Harley-Davidson, the American motorcycle maker founded in 1903 by William S. Harley and the Davidson brothers; the surname itself traces to an Old English place name meaning roughly "hare wood" or "rock clearing."

harlot

Old French

From Old French harlot, originally meaning a vagabond or low-born person of either sex, before narrowing in English to its current meaning.

harlotry

Origin

From harlot + -ry.

Harlow

Old English

From Old English here ("army") + hlæw ("hill").