Etymograph

English

to

To comes from Old English tō ‘to, into’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *de ‘to, towards’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*de1‘to’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*doh₁1reconstructed
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*tō1reconstructed
  4. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*tō1reconstructed
  5. Old Englishc. 450–1150tō1‘to’
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500to1
  7. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588to1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English to
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The hoſt of Xerxes, which by fame is ſaid…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*deWiktionary, English to‘to’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*doh₁Wiktionary, English toreconstructed
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*tōWiktionary, English toreconstructed
  4. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*tōWiktionary, English toreconstructed
  5. Old Englishc. 450–1150tōWiktionary, English to‘to’
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500toWiktionary, English to
  7. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588toWiktionary, English to. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “The hoſt of Xerxes, which by fame is ſaid…”

The story

Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian ndaj (‘towards’), Irish do (‘to, for’), Breton da (‘to, for’), Welsh i (‘to, for’), Russian до (do, “to”).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

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

through Proto-Indo-European *de ‘to, towards’

  • dice ← dys ← des ← de ← dē

through Proto-Indo-European *doh₁

  • da ← да ← да ← *do

through Proto-Germanic *tō

  • together ← togedere ← tōgædere ← *tōgadura

through Old English tō ‘to, into’

through Middle English to

5 more relatives in the full family tree

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Another origin of to

  1. Proto-Indo-Iranianc. 2500–1800 BCE*tátasuncertain
  2. Proto-Indo-Aryanprehistoric (reconstructed)*tátasuncertain
  3. Sanskritc. 1500–500 BCEततस्‘from there’uncertain
  4. Hindic. 1500–presentतो‘then’
  5. Englishtodayto

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Today it means

particle A particle used for marking the following verb as an infinitive.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “to”. 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 *de / to