drei (German)
Where does "drei" come from?
The German word 'drei' descends from the ancient Proto-Indo-European root *tréyes, which likely originally related to the concept of a protruding middle finger. Over millennia, it evolved through Proto-Germanic and Proto-West Germanic as *þrīz and *þrīʀ before stabilizing into the Old High German 'drī'. This deep linguistic lineage links 'drei' to many modern Germanic equivalents, including the English 'three' and the Dutch 'drie'.
Full etymology tree
- drei (German), 'three (numerical value represented by the Arabic numeral 3; or describing a set with three elements)'
- inherited drī (Middle High German), 'three'
- inherited drī (Old High German), 'three'
- inherited *þrīʀ (Proto-West Germanic), 'three'
- inherited *þrīz (Proto-Germanic), 'three'
- inherited *þrijiz (Proto-Germanic)
- inherited *tréyes (Proto-Indo-European), 'three'
- influence तर्मन् (tarman) (Sanskrit)
- influence τέρθρον (térthron) (Ancient Greek), 'the end of the sail-yard'
- inherited *tréyes (Proto-Indo-European), 'three'
- inherited *þrijiz (Proto-Germanic)
- inherited *þrīz (Proto-Germanic), 'three'
- inherited *þrīʀ (Proto-West Germanic), 'three'
- inherited drī (Old High German), 'three'
- inherited drī (Middle High German), 'three'
Direct ancestors
- dri (Old High German)
- þrīʀ (Proto-West Germanic)
- þrīz (Proto-Germanic)
- tréyes (Proto-Indo-European)
- drie (Dutch)
- three (English)
- tre (Danish)
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris