Etymograph

English

forget

Forget comes from Old English forġietan ‘to forget’, from Proto-West Germanic *fragetan ‘to give up, forget’.

  1. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fragetan1‘to give up, forget’reconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150forġietan2‘to forget’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500forgeten2
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1593forget2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Old English forgietan
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English forget
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1593, Thomas Nashe, Christs Teares Over Ierusalem. […]: “VVe (of all earthlings) are Gods vtmoſt ſubiects, the…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*fragetanWiktionary, Old English forgietan‘to give up, forget’reconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150forġietanWiktionary, English forget‘to forget’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500forgetenWiktionary, English forget
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1593forgetWiktionary, English forget. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1593, Thomas Nashe, Christs Teares Over Ierusalem. […]: “VVe (of all earthlings) are Gods vtmoſt ſubiects, the…”

The story

From Middle English forgeten, forgiten, foryeten, forȝiten, from Old English forġietan (‘to forget’) [influenced by Old Norse geta ("to get, to guess")], from Proto-West Germanic *fragetan (‘to give up, forget’).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with forget, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-West Germanic *fragetan ‘to forget’

Explore everything descended from *fragetan →

No ads, ever. This is how the app stays alive.

Become a founding member, $29 onceWear this word, $32Support the app

Today it means

verb To lose remembrance of.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “forget”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Old English forgietan. 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-West Germanic *fragetan / forget