English
sack
Sack comes from Middle English sak ‘bag, sackcloth’.
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English sack
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle Of…”.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500sakWiktionary, English sack‘bag, sackcloth’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588sackWiktionary, English sack. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle Of…”
A compound of sacc ‘sack, bag’ + sæċċ ‘sackcloth, sacking’
Ancient Greek σᾰ́κκος ‘coarse cloth of hair’
Latin saccus ‘a sack, bag’
Proto-Germanic *sakkuz ‘sack, bag, purse’
Proto-West Germanic *sakk
Old English sacc ‘sack, bag’
Ancient Greek σᾰ́κκος ‘coarse cloth of hair’
Latin saccus ‘a sack, bag’
Proto-Germanic *sakkuz ‘sack, bag, purse’
Proto-West Germanic *sakku ‘sack, bag’
Old English sæċċ ‘sackcloth, sacking’
The story
From Middle English sak, sek, sach, zech (‘bag, sackcloth’), from Old English sacc (‘sack, bag’) and sæċċ (‘sackcloth, sacking’); both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz (‘sack’), borrowed from Latin saccus (‘large bag’), from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “bag of coarse cloth”), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew. Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (‘to gather or put together’) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.
Every English word from Middle English sak
Another origin of sack
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*sek-‘to dry up’uncertain
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*siskus‘dry’uncertain
- Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*siskʷosuncertain
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccus‘dry’
- Englishtodaysack
Today it means
noun A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “sack”. 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 / Middle English sak / sack