Etymograph

English

noose

Noose comes from Middle English nose ‘noose, loop’, from Old French nos ‘we’, and perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂ ‘I’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*éǵh₂1‘I’disputed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*egō1‘I’uncertain
  3. Archaic Latinc. 700–75 BCEeco1uncertain
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEego2as nōs‘I; first person singular personal pronoun, nominative case’uncertain
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400nos3as nous‘we’uncertain
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500nose4‘noose, loop’
  7. Englishearliest quotation 2025noose4

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin ego
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Old French nos
  3. 3 Wiktionary, Middle English nose
  4. 4 Wiktionary, English noose
  5. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2025, Kashmir Hill, What OpenAI Did When ChatGPT Users Lost Touch With Reality: “In its final messages before Adam [Raine] took his…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*éǵh₂Wiktionary, Latin ego‘I’disputed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*egōWiktionary, Latin ego‘I’uncertain
  3. Archaic Latinc. 700–75 BCEecoWiktionary, Latin egouncertain
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEegoWiktionary, Old French nosas nōs‘I; first person singular personal pronoun, nominative case’uncertain
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400nosWiktionary, Middle English noseas nous‘we’uncertain
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500noseWiktionary, English noose‘noose, loop’
  7. Englishearliest quotation 2025nooseWiktionary, English noose. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2025, Kashmir Hill, What OpenAI Did When ChatGPT Users Lost Touch With Reality: “In its final messages before Adam [Raine] took his…”

The story

Possibly from Old French nos or Old Occitan nous, nos, nominative singular or accusative plural of nou (‘knot’), with a required change in meaning shifting from the "knot" itself to the "loop" created by the knot. Perhaps derived from an incorrect division of ēn' ȫse (literally “a loop”), from Middle Low German ȫse, from Old Saxon *ōsia, from Proto-West Germanic *ansiju (‘eyelet, loop’).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂ ‘I’

myself, ch, az, ich, mee, 4 more

through Latin ego ‘I’

ego, egoism, egotism, egoist, 2 more

through Middle English nose ‘noose, loop’

nose, 1 more

Today it means

noun An adjustable loop of rope, such as the one placed around the neck in hangings, or the one at the end of a lasso.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “noose”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin ego, Old French nos, Middle English nose. 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 *éǵh₂ / noose

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