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)
        • influence *newun (Proto-Germanic), 'nine'
        • influence *tehun (Proto-Germanic), 'ten'

Direct ancestors

• sebun (Proto-West Germanic)
• siƀun (Old Saxon)
• sibun (Old High German)
• sjau (Old Norse)
• 𐍃𐌹𐌱𐌿𐌽 (Gothic)
• septem (Latin)
• ἑπτά (Ancient Greek)
• सप्त (Sanskrit)

Updated July 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris