me
Etymology graph
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Origin
From Middle English me, from Old English mē (“me”, originally dative, but later also accusative, supplanting accusative mec), from Proto-West Germanic *miʀ, from Proto-Germanic *miz (“me”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁me- (“me”).
Cognate with Scots me, North Frisian me, Saterland Frisian mie, Dutch me, mij, Low German mi, German mir (dative only), Icelandic mér (also still dative), Latin mē, Ancient Greek μέ (mé), ἐμέ (emé), Sanskrit मा (mā), all meaning “me”.
From mi (“third note of a major scale”) + -e (“flat”), from Glover's solmization, Italian mi in the solmization of Guido of Arezzo, from the first syllable of Latin mīra in the lyrics of the scale-ascending hymn Ut queant laxis by Paulus Deacon.
From Middle English me, an unstressed phonetic reduction of men, man (pronouns; q. v.). Compare German man (“one, you”, indefinite pronoun).
From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lineage
- inheritedMiddle Englishme
- partEnglishmi “A syllable used in sol-fa (solfège) to represent the third note of a major scale.”
- inheritedMiddle Englishmi “third degree or note of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal scales”
- inheritedOld Englishmīn “my, mine”
- inheritedMiddle Englishmi “third degree or note of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal scales”
- derivedItalianmi
- derivedLatinmīra “miracles; the miraculous”
Related: Latin mē, German man
Words built on it: myself
Sources
- Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wiktionary: me