Etymograph

English

sky

Sky comes from Middle English sky, from Old Norse ský ‘cloud’, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją ‘cloud, sky’.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skiwô1‘cloud cover, haze’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skiwją1‘cloud; sky’reconstructed
  3. Old Norsec. 800–1350ský1‘cloud; (plural) sky’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500sky1‘sky; cloud’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596sky1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English sky
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto): “For beſides the groues, / The skyes, the fountaines,…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skiwôWiktionary, English sky‘cloud cover, haze’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skiwjąWiktionary, English sky‘cloud; sky’reconstructed
  3. Old Norsec. 800–1350skýWiktionary, English sky‘cloud; (plural) sky’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500skyWiktionary, English sky‘sky; cloud’
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596skyWiktionary, English sky. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto): “For beſides the groues, / The skyes, the fountaines,…”

The story

The noun is derived from Middle English sky (‘sky; cloud; mist’), also spelled ski, skie, [and other forms], from Old Norse ský (‘cloud’), from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (‘cloud; sky’), from *skiwô (‘cloud; cloud cover, haze; sky’) (whence Old English sċēo (‘cloud’) and Middle English skew (‘air; sky; (rare) cloud’)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (‘to cover; to conceal, hide’). Partly displaced Old English heofon, which survives in the reflex heaven, still sometimes used in the sense of sky, but usually in high or poetic register.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

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

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- ‘to cover, bedeck’

  • house ← hous ← hūs ← *hūs ← *hūsą
  • hide ← hiden ← hȳdan ← *huʀdijan ← *huzdijaną
  • hose ← *hosā ← *husǭ
  • scum ← *skūm ← *skūmaz
  • shun ← schonen ← sċunian
  • cystic ← cystique ← κύστις
  • hutch ← hucche ← hwiċċe

9 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun The atmosphere above a given point, especially as visible from the surface of the Earth as the place where the sun, moon, stars, and clouds are seen.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “sky”. 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 *skiwô / sky