Etymograph

English

get

Get comes from Old Norse geta ‘to get’, from Proto-Germanic *getaną ‘to find; to acquire’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- ‘to take, seize’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gʰed-1‘to take, seize’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*getaną1‘to find; to acquire, get’reconstructed
  3. Old Norsec. 800–1350geta1‘to get’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500geten1‘to get’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1591get1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English get
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1591, William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixt: “We mourn, France smiles; we lose, they daily get.”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gʰed-Wiktionary, English get‘to take, seize’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*getanąWiktionary, English get‘to find; to acquire, get’reconstructed
  3. Old Norsec. 800–1350getaWiktionary, English get‘to get’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500getenWiktionary, English get‘to get’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1591getWiktionary, English get. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1591, William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixt: “We mourn, France smiles; we lose, they daily get.”

Word family

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

through Proto-Germanic *getaną ‘to find’

  • guess ← gessen ← getse ← *getsa ← *gitisōną
  • yet ← yeten ← ġietan ← *getan
  • gat ← *gatą

1 more relative in the full family tree

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Another origin of get

  1. Sumerianc. 3100–1800 BCE𒁍uncertain
  2. Sumerianc. 3100–1800 BCE𒁍𒁕uncertain
  3. Akkadianc. 2500–100 BCE𒁍𒁕uncertain
  4. Hebrew1880s–presentגֵּטgēṭ‘a get, a document effecting the divorce of a wife from her husband’
  5. Englishtodayget

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Today it means

verb To obtain; to acquire.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “get”. 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 *gʰed- / get