Etymograph

English

enough

Enough comes from Old English ġenōg ‘enough, sufficient’, from Proto-Germanic *ganōgaz ‘enough’.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*ganōgaz1‘enough, sufficient’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*ganōg2reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150ġenōg1‘enough, sufficient’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ynogh1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1598–1599enough1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English enough
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Old English genog
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1598–1599, Much Adoe about Nothing: “I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*ganōgazWiktionary, English enough‘enough, sufficient’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*ganōgWiktionary, Old English genogreconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150ġenōgWiktionary, English enough‘enough, sufficient’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ynoghWiktionary, English enough
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1598–1599enoughWiktionary, English enough. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1598–1599, Much Adoe about Nothing: “I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.”

The story

From Middle English ynogh, from Old English ġenōg (‘enough’), from Proto-Germanic *ganōgaz (‘enough’) (compare Scots eneuch, West Frisian genôch, Dutch genoeg, German genug, Low German (ge)noog, Danish nok, Swedish nog, Icelandic nógur), from *ganuganą 'to suffice' (compare Old English ġeneah), or from *ga- + an unattested *nōgaz, probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eh₂nó(n)ḱe (‘he has reached, attained’), perfective of *h₂neḱ- (‘to reach’) (compare Old Irish tánaic (‘he arrived’), Latin nancisci (‘to get’), Albanian kënaq (‘to please, satisfy’)).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Proto-Germanic *ganōgaz

Today it means

det Used before a noun in the manner of words like some, a bit of, and so on.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “enough”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Old English genog. 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-Germanic *ganōgaz / enough

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