seofon (Old English)
Where does "seofon" come from?
The word 'seven' traces back to the ancient Proto-Indo-European root *septḿ̥, which experts believe may have been a shared 'culture word' exchanged through early contact with Semitic populations. It evolved into the Proto-Germanic *sebun, eventually leading to the Old English form 'seofon'. This numeral maintains deep ancestral ties across a vast language family, appearing in cognates as diverse as the Latin 'septem', Greek 'heptá', and Sanskrit 'saptá'.
Full etymology tree
- seofon (Old English), 'seven'
- inherited *sebun (Proto-West Germanic), 'seven'
- inherited *sebun (Proto-Germanic), 'seven'
- derived *sebunt (Proto-Germanic)
- derived *sepḿ̥t (Pre-Germanic)
- inherited *septḿ̥ (Proto-Indo-European), 'seven'
- borrowed *šabʕ- (Proto-Semitic), 'seven'
- inherited *sṗɣ (Proto-Afroasiatic)
- borrowed *šabʕ- (Proto-Semitic), 'seven'
- inherited *septḿ̥ (Proto-Indo-European), 'seven'
- influence *newun (Proto-Germanic), 'nine'
- influence *tehun (Proto-Germanic), 'ten'
- derived *sepḿ̥t (Pre-Germanic)
- derived *sebunt (Proto-Germanic)
- inherited *sebun (Proto-Germanic), 'seven'
- inherited *sebun (Proto-West Germanic), 'seven'
Ancestors
Cognates and doublets
- ἑπτά (Ancient Greek)
- 𐍃𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌽 (Gothic)
- septem (Latin)
- седмь (Old Church Slavonic)
- sibun (Old High German)
- secht (Old Irish)
- sjau (Old Norse)
- siƀun (Old Saxon)
- सप्त (Sanskrit)
Descendants and derived words
- seven (Middle English)
- ceven (Middle English)
- seofen (Middle English)
- seoven (Middle English)
- seven (Middle English)
- sevene (Middle English)
- sevyn (Middle English)
- sewyn (Middle English)
- seofonnihte (Old English)
- seofonstierre (Old English)
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris