window
/ˈwɪndoʊ/noun, verb
An opening that admits light or air
From O.Norse wind (Moving air) + O.Norse eye (Eye).
Lineage
wind
eye
The story
Before glass panes became common, a hole in the roof or wall could serve as a house’s eye—and let the wind stroll right in. Around 1200, English speakers borrowed Old Norse vindauga, literally “wind-eye,” and reshaped it into window. The word replaced native Old English compounds meaning “eye-hole” and “eye-door,” so the metaphor was apparently too good to resist. Its eye element belongs to a family that includes German Auge and Dutch oog; the wind element connects with the old Germanic word for moving air, though the supplied sources give differing reconstructions for its deeper ancestry. For centuries, a window was less a pane to look through than an eye in the building that also breathed.