English
dave
Dave (dialectal ‘to assuage’) comes from Middle English deven ‘to make deaf’, from Old English dēafian and Old Norse deyfa.
- Old Englishc. 450–1150dēafian1‘to wax or become deaf’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500deven1‘to make deaf’
- Englishtodaydave1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English dave
Lineage
- Old Englishc. 450–1150dēafianWiktionary, English dave‘to wax or become deaf’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500devenWiktionary, English dave‘to make deaf’
- EnglishtodaydaveWiktionary, English dave
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- ‘to whisk, be obscured’
deep, bottom, fund, foundation, depth, dumb, founder, dip, fond, bot, dub, bourne, dove, butte, typhus, 22 more
through Proto-West Germanic *daub ‘stunned’
through Old English dēaf
Today it means
verb To assuage; soften; mitigate; relieve; calm; alleviate (pain).
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “dave”. 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 / Old English dēafian / dave