English

tournament

Tournament comes from Old French tornoiement ‘tournament’, from tornoiier ‘to turn’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-.

Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*terh₁-¹‘to rub’reconstructed
Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*tórh₁nos¹reconstructed
Proto-Hellenicc. 2200–1600 BCE*tórnos¹reconstructed
Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEτόρνος¹tórnos‘a tool similar to a pair of compasses used to draw a circle’
Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtornus¹‘lathe’
Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtornō²‘to turn’
Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*tornidiō²reconstructed
Old Frenchc. 842–1400tornoiier³as tornoier‘to turn’
Old Frenchc. 842–1400tornoiement⁴‘tournament’
Englishearliest quotation 2011tournament⁴

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

¹ Wiktionary, Latin torno
² Wiktionary, Old French tornoiier
³ Wiktionary, Old French tornoiement
⁴ Wiktionary, English tournament
Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2011, Phil McNulty: “England secured their place at Euro 2012 with a…”.

Word family

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

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Sources: Wiktionary, “tournament”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin torno, Old French tornoiier, Old French tornoiement. 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.