sowbread (English)

Where does "sowbread" come from?

The English plant name 'sowbread', referring to cyclamen, is a compound formed from 'sow' and 'bread', so called because the plant's tubers were traditionally eaten by swine[1]. The first element descends from Middle English 'sowe'[3][7] and Old English 'sugu'[3][6], ultimately reaching back to Proto-Indo-European '*suH-', meaning 'pig'[3][10]. The second element comes from Middle English 'bred'[2][4] and Old English 'brēad', which originally denoted a fragment or crumb before coming to mean loaf or food[2]. Farther back, it derives from Proto-Germanic '*braudą', which linguists link either to roots relating to boiling and brewing or to breaking into pieces[2][8].

Open questions

The deeper origin of Proto-Germanic '*braudą' is disputed, with scholars proposing derivations from roots meaning to boil, to pierce or strike, or a conflation of multiple earlier forms. [2] [8]
The development of the consonant in Proto-West Germanic '*sugu' is uncertain, explained either through a suffixed diminutive or through a sound change from a glide between vowels. [10]

Full etymology tree

sowbread (English), 'Cyclamen, plant of the genus Cyclamen.'
- compound sow (English), 'A female pig.'
  - inherited sowe (Middle English), 'A sow; a female pig.'
    - inherited sugu (Old English), 'sow (female pig)'
      - inherited *sugu (Proto-West Germanic), 'sow (female pig)'
        inherited *sugō (Proto-Germanic)
        derived *su(H)kéh₂ (Proto-Indo-European)
        derived *suH- (Proto-Indo-European), 'pig, hog, swine'
        derived *sewH- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to bear (a child)'
        derived *sew- (Proto-Indo-European)
- compound bread (English), 'A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.'
  - inherited bred (Middle English), 'bread, pastry'
    - inherited bread (Old English), 'bit, piece, morsel, crumb'
      - inherited *braud (Proto-West Germanic), 'bread'
        inherited *braudą (Proto-Germanic), 'bread'

Ancestors

Sources

Updated October 2026

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