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Origin and history of booth

booth(n.)

c. 1200, mid-12c. in place-names, "temporary structure of boards, etc.," especially a stall for the sale of goods or food or entertainment, at a fair, etc., from Old Danish boþ "temporary dwelling," from East Norse *boa "to dwell," from Proto-Germanic *bowan-, from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow." See also bower, and compare German Bude "booth, stall," Middle Dutch boode, Lithuanian butas "house," Old Irish both "hut," Bohemian bouda, Polish buda, some of which probably were borrowed from East Norse, some independently formed from the PIE root.

also from c. 1200

Entries linking to booth

bower(n.)

Old English bur "room, hut, dwelling, chamber," from Proto-Germanic *bowan (source also of Old Norse bur "chamber," Swedish bur "cage," Old Danish both "dwelling, stall," Old Saxon bur "a house; a cage," Old High German bur "dwelling, chamber," buan "to dwell," German Vogelbauer "cage" for a bird), from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow."

The modern spelling developed after mid-14c. The sense of "leafy arbor" (place closed in, shaded, or sheltered by trees) is attested from 1520s. Hence, too, Australia's bower-bird (1847), so called for the ornamented play-houses it builds.

tollbooth(n.)

early 14c., tol-booth, originally a tax collector's booth or customs house at a market, fair, etc., from toll (n.) + booth. Also by extension, "town jail," tollbooths at fairs and markets being used to confine cheaters and other offenders.

*bheue-

*bheuə-, also *bheu-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to be, exist, grow."

It might form all or part of: Bauhaus; be; beam; Boer; bondage; boodle; boom (n.1) "long pole;" boor; booth; bound (adj.2) "ready to go;" bower; bowery; build; bumpkin; busk; bustle (v.) "be active;" byre; bylaw; Eisteddfod; Euphues; fiat; forebear; future; husband; imp; Monophysite; neighbor; neophyte; phyletic; phylo-; phylum; phylogeny; physic; physico-; physics; physio-; physique; -phyte; phyto-; symphysis.

It might form all or part of: Sanskrit bhavah "becoming," bhavati "becomes, happens," bhumih "earth, world;" Greek phyein "to bring forth, make grow," phytos, phyton "a plant," physis "growth, nature," phylon "tribe, class, race," phyle "tribe, clan;" Old English beon "be, exist, come to be, become, happen;" Old Church Slavonic byti "be," Greek phu- "become," Old Irish bi'u "I am," Lithuanian būti "to be," Russian byt' "to be."