Advertisement

Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.

Origin and history of Henry

Henry

masc. proper name, from French Henri, from Late Latin Henricus, from German Heinrich, from Old High German Heimerich, literally "the ruler of the house," from heim "home" (see home (n.)) + rihhi "ruler" (from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line," with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule"). One of the most popular Norman names after the Conquest. Related: Henrician.

Entries linking to Henry

home(n.)

Old English ham "dwelling place, house, abode, fixed residence; estate; village; region, country," from Proto-Germanic *haimaz "home" (source also of Old Frisian hem "home, village," Old Norse heimr "residence, world," heima "home," Danish hjem, Middle Dutch heem, German heim "home," Gothic haims "village"). This is reconstructed to be from a suffixed form of PIE root *tkei- "to settle, dwell, be home."

As an adjective from 1550s. The old Germanic sense of "village" is preserved in place names and in hamlet.

'Home' in the full range and feeling of [Modern English] home is a conception that belongs distinctively to the word home and some of its Gmc. cognates and is not covered by any single word in most of the IE languages. [Buck]

The slang phrase make (oneself) at home "become comfortable in a place one does not live" dates from 1892 (at home "at one's ease" is from 1510s). To keep the home fires burning is a song title from 1914. To be nothing to write home about "unremarkable" is from 1907. Home movie is from 1919; home computer is from 1967.

Home stretch (1841) is from horse racing (see stretch (n.)). Home economics as a school course is attested by 1899; the phrase itself by 1879 (as "household management" is the original literal sense of economy, the phrase is etymologically redundant).

Home as the goal in a sport or game is from 1778. Home base in baseball is attested by 1856; home plate by 1867. Home team in sports is from 1869; home field "grounds belonging to the local team" is from 1802 (the 1800 citation in OED 2nd ed. print is a date typo, as it refers to baseball in Spokane Falls). Home-field advantage attested from 1955.

Harris

surname, attested from c. 1400 (Harrys), from "Harry," the popular pronunciation of Henry. As a type of tweed (1892), it is from the name of the southern section of the island of Lewis with Harris in the Outer Hebrides; originally it referred to fabric produced by the inhabitants there, later a proprietary name. That place name represents Gaelic na-h-earaidh "that which is higher," in comparison to the lower Lewis. Harrisburg, capital of Pennsylvania, is named for ferryman John Harris (1727-1791), son of the original European settler.

Advertisement

Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.

Trends of Henry

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

More to explore

harry
Old English hergian "make war, lay waste, ravage, plunder," the word used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for what the Vikings did to England, from Proto-Germanic *harjon (source also of Old Frisian urheria "lay waste, ravage, plunder," Old Norse herja "to make a raid, to plunder,"
H
eighth letter of the alphabet; it comes from Phoenician, via Greek and Latin. In Phoenician it originally had a rough guttural sound like German Reich or Scottish loch. In Greek at first it had the value of Modern English -h-, and with this value it passed into the Latin alphabet
Angevin
in reference to the English royal house of the 12th and early 13th centuries (Henry II, Richard I, and John) descended from...Geoffrey, count of Anjou, and Matilda, daughter of Henry I, 1650s, literally "pertaining to the French province of Anjou...
Jamesian
in reference to William James (1842-1910), U.S. philosopher and exponent of pragmatism; 1905 in reference to his brother Henry...it but seldom, yet it is all unforgettable. […] No man who has not lived on both sides of the Atlantic can well appraise Henry...[Ezra Pound, from “Henry James,” Little Review, August 1918]...
John Hancock
colloquial for "signature," 1903 (sometimes, through some unexplainable error, John Henry), from the Boston merchant and...Yorkshire as a pet form of Henry or John....
sirloin
folk-etymology this is because the cut of beef was "knighted" by an English king for its superiority, a tale variously told of Henry...Fuller, "Church-History of Britain," who writes parenthetically that it was "so knighted, saith tradition, by this King Henry...," meaning Henry VIII)....
VIP
[John Donne, letter to Sir Henry Goodere, Sept. 1608]...
moonlight
"hold a second job, especially at night," 1957 (implied in the verbal noun moonlighting), from moonlighter "one who takes a second job after hours" (1954), from the notion of working by the light of the moon; see moonlight (n.). Earlier the verb had been used to mean "commit crim
comedy
late 14c., "narrative with a happy ending; any composition intended for amusement," from Old French comedie (14c.), "a poem" (not in the theatrical sense) and directly from Latin comoedia, from Greek kōmōidia "a comedy, amusing spectacle," probably [Beekes] from kōmōidos "actor o
mushroom
a word applied at first to almost any of the larger fungi but later to the agaricoid fungi and especially the edible varieties, mid-15c., muscheron, musseroun (attested 1327 as a surname, John Mussheron), from Anglo-French musherun, Old French meisseron (11c., Modern French mouss

Share Henry

Advertisement

Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.

Trending
Dictionary entries near Henry
Advertisement

Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.

Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.