entry
window
/ˈwɪndoʊ/opening in a wall for light or air
From O.Norse / Proto-Germanic wind (wind) + O.Norse / Proto-Germanic eye (eye).
from Old Norse vindauga (Old Danish vindue )
Word Ancestry
from Old Norse vindauga (Old Danish vindue )
A window began life as a "wind-eye," which is exactly as poetic and odd as it sounds: a hole in the roof where air could peer in. Old Norse speakers had the lovely compound vindauga, and English borrowed it around 1200, sweeping aside older native words like "eye-door" and "eye-hole." The image makes perfect sense if you picture a smoky hall with a bare opening overhead — not a polished pane of glass, but a rough gulp of sky. That second half, the "eye," is the same family that gave us German Auge and Dutch oog, while the first half is kin to wind, breeze, and even our talk of winds of change. By the time glass windows became normal in medieval Europe, the word had already done its job: it had turned a drafty opening into a part of the house with an eyeball in it.
The Story
A window began life as a "wind-eye," which is exactly as poetic and odd as it sounds: a hole in the roof where air could peer in. Old Norse speakers had the lovely compound vindauga, and English borrowed it around 1200, sweeping aside older native words like "eye-door" and "eye-hole." The image makes perfect sense if you picture a smoky hall with a bare opening overhead — not a polished pane of glass, but a rough gulp of sky. That second half, the "eye," is the same family that gave us German Auge and Dutch oog, while the first half is kin to wind, breeze, and even our talk of winds of change. By the time glass windows became normal in medieval Europe, the word had already done its job: it had turned a drafty opening into a part of the house with an eyeball in it.
Kin & Kindred
From 'wind'·wind, blowing air
Derived Terms
English words from this root
From 'eye'·eye, opening, hole
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary