860: run (of Germanic Origin) Apr 16, 2017

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Often dictionaries will simply list words as 'of Germanic origin', even when it says that the word comes from Old English. This is not simply redundant and there happen to be several editorial and etymological reasons. While English is classified as a West Germanic (WG) language, viking invaders who spoke North Germanic (NG) languages heavily influenced the vocabulary of Old, and thence Modern English. While it's a good rule of thumb that most simple, non-technical words one comes across in English will be Germanic, common words like the strong verb 'run' do not necessarily resemble their Modern German (which is WG) counterparts, in this case, 'laufen'. While 'run', deriving from the Old English 'rinnan, irnan' is one of those such words listed as "of Germanic origin", this is not to say that 'run' is separate to other WG words. It is true that 'run' was reinforced by the Old Norse (which is NG) 'rinna, renna', but it is also related to the Old High German (which is WG) 'rinnan', also meaning 'run'. It would be unfair to say that the word is specifically WG or NG, and indeed the word is far older than the split between different Germanic languages occurred with related words coming even from Sanskrit. In fact, the word 'laufen' is also Germanic, but is related to the English word, 'leap' and 'lope', with the typical English P where there is a German F.


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