window

A window began as a “wind-eye”: the Old Norse compound vindauga joined vindr, “wind,” with auga, “eye.” It was borrowed into Middle English as wyndowe, recorded around 1230. The name evokes an opening through which wind could pass, though the claim that early Germanic windows were simply unglazed holes is presented as uncertain. The English word first referred to an unglazed roof opening; it later displaced Old English ēagþȳrel, literally “eye-hole,” and ēagduru, “eye-door.” Over time, windows were commonly glazed, and the word also gained figurative uses for an opportunity or a way of seeing into something. The computer-interface sense is another extension of that familiar image of an opening onto a view.