home
(n, hence adj, adv, v), whence homeless, homely (whence homeliness), homer (agential
-er), and such obvious cpds as home-made, -sick, -spun, -stead (cf OE hāmstede), -
ward (cf OE hāmweard), -work;—-ham, in PlNn; hamlet;—haunt (v, hence n).
1. Home, ME horn, earlier ham, derives from OE hām, home, house with land, estate,
akin to OFris hām, hēm, OS hēm, MD heem, heim, OHG-G heim, home, Go haims,
village, ON heimr, world, village, heima, home; also to OP seimins, a farm, Lith šeimà, a
family,? orig a homestead, and Gr kōmē, a village, and perh Gr keitai, he is recumbent,
Skt kayati, he is lying down; IE r, *kei-.
2. OE hām acquires in PlNn the sense ‘group of dwellings’, as in Nottingham, West
Ham, etc. But hamlet derives from ME hamelet, adopted from MF hamelet
,
dim of MF
hameau, hamlet, itself from OF ham
,
of Gmc origin (as above).
3. OE hām, an abode or dwelling, has derivative hāmetan, to house, which has cognate
ON heimta, to bring (cattle) home (from pasture), whence OF hanter, to dwell in, hence
to frequent: whence ME haulen, E ‘to haunt’.