move (English)
Where does "move" come from?
The English word 'move' descends from Middle English 'moven'[1]. That verb was borrowed from Old Northern French 'mover' and Old French 'mouver', meaning 'to move'[1]. The French terms trace back to the Latin verb 'movēre', which meant to move, change, or quit[1]. Ultimately, this leads back through Proto-Italic '*moweō'[2] to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root '*m(y)ewh₁-', meaning 'to move' or 'drive'[1][2]. In English, this borrowed term largely displaced the native word 'stir'[1].
Open questions
- The earliest ancestral form is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root '*m(y)ewh₁-', which is unattested directly in historical records. [1] [2] [3]
- The Proto-Italic stem '*moweō' is reconstructed from an earlier causative form '*mawejō', with its root vowel proposed to have been imported from an aorist stem. [3]
Full etymology tree
- move (English), 'The act of moving; a movement.'
- inherited moven (Middle English)
- borrowed mover (Old French), 'alternative form of movoir'
- derived movere (Latin), 'inflection of moveō:'
- inherited *moweō (Proto-Italic), 'to move'
- derived *mawejō (Proto-Italic)
- derived *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to move'
- influenced by *mowa- (Proto-Italic)
- derived *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to move'
- derived *mawejō (Proto-Italic)
- inherited *moweō (Proto-Italic), 'to move'
- derived movere (Latin), 'inflection of moveō:'
- borrowed mover (Old French), 'alternative form of movoir'
- inherited moven (Middle English)
Ancestors
- *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European)
- mover (Old French)
- moveo (Latin)
Descendants and derived words
- move (Dutch)
- move (Dutch)
- bust a move (English)
- down to every move on the board (English)
- fifty-move rule (English)
- get a move on (English)
- make a move (English)
- make the first move (English)
- moveless (English)
- movelessly (English)
- movelessness (English)
- moveset (English)
Sources
Updated October 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris