English
body
Body comes from Old English bodiġ ‘body, trunk, chest, torso, height, stature’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- ‘to be awake, observe’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰewdʰ-1‘to be awake’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*bodag1‘body’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150bodiġ1‘body’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500body1
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596body1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English body
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame: “And as imagination bodies forth / The forms of…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰewdʰ-Wiktionary, English body‘to be awake’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*bodagWiktionary, English body‘body’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150bodiġWiktionary, English body‘body’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500bodyWiktionary, English body
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596bodyWiktionary, English body. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame: “And as imagination bodies forth / The forms of…”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with body, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- ‘to be awake, observe’
3 more relatives in the full family tree
No ads, ever.
Explore everything descended from *bʰewdʰ- →
No ads, ever. This is how the app stays alive.
Become a founding member, $29 onceWear this word, $32Support the app
Today it means
noun The physical structure of a human or animal seen as one single organism.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “body”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- / body