Etymograph

English

corner

Corner comes from Anglo-Norman cornere, from Old French corne ‘corner, angle’, from Vulgar Latin *corna, from Latin cornū ‘horn, projecting point’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱerh₂-1‘horn, head’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*kornū1‘horn’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcornū1‘horn; projecting point’
  4. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*corna1‘horn’reconstructed
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400corne1‘corner, angle’
  6. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400cornere1
  7. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500corner1‘a corner or angle’
  8. Englishearliest quotation c. 1596–1598corner1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English corner
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: “Why, that’s the lady: all the world desires her;…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱerh₂-Wiktionary, English corner‘horn, head’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*kornūWiktionary, English corner‘horn’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcornūWiktionary, English corner‘horn; projecting point’
  4. Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*cornaWiktionary, English corner‘horn’reconstructed
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400corneWiktionary, English corner‘corner, angle’
  6. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400cornereWiktionary, English corner
  7. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cornerWiktionary, English corner‘a corner or angle’
  8. Englishearliest quotation c. 1596–1598cornerWiktionary, English corner. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: “Why, that’s the lady: all the world desires her;…”

The story

From Middle English corner, from Anglo-Norman cornere (compare Old French cornier, corniere (‘corner’)), from Old French corne (“corner, angle”, literally “a horn, projecting point”), from Vulgar Latin *corna (‘horn’), from Latin cornua, plural of cornū (‘projecting point, end, horn’). The sense of "angle, corner" in Old French is not found in Latin or other Romance languages. It was possibly calqued from Frankish *hurnijā (‘corner, angle’), which is similar to, and derived from *hurn, the Frankish word for "horn".

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Explore everything descended from *ḱerh₂- →

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 point where two converging lines meet; an angle, either external or internal.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “corner”. 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 *ḱerh₂- / corner