Etymograph

English

weight

Weight comes from Middle English weight, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *wihtiz.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*wihtiz1reconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150wiht1
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500weight1
  4. Englishearliest quotation c. 1603–1606weight1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English weight
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of King Lear: “The waight of this ſad time we muſt obey[…]”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*wihtizWiktionary, English weightreconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150wihtWiktionary, English weight
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500weightWiktionary, English weight
  4. Englishearliest quotation c. 1603–1606weightWiktionary, English weight. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of King Lear: “The waight of this ſad time we muſt obey[…]”

Word family

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

through Old English wiht

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Today it means

noun The downwards force an object experiences due to gravity.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “weight”. 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 *wihtiz / weight