five (English)

Where does "five" come from?

The English word 'five' descends through Middle English 'five' and Old English 'fīf' from Proto-West Germanic '*fimf' and Proto-Germanic '*fimf'[1]. These trace back ultimately to the Proto-Indo-European ancestral form '*pénkʷe'[1]. Within the Germanic branch, the nasal sound in '*fimf' underwent a loss due to a historical sound change known as the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law[1].

Open questions

The Proto-Indo-European form '*pénkʷe' is usually explained as a derivation from the words for fist and finger, though a related verbal stem '*penkʷ-' is not attested in any daughter languages and other scholars have suggested alternate roots. [4]
Proto-Germanic '*fimf' derives from Pre-Germanic '*pémpe' via an irregular consonant change from Proto-Indo-European '*pénkʷe', where the expected form would have been '**finhw'. [5]

Full etymology tree

five (English), 'A numerical value equal to 5; the number following four and preceding six.'
- inherited five (Middle English), 'five'
  - inherited fif (Old English), 'five'
    - inherited *fimf (Proto-West Germanic), 'five'
      - inherited *fimf (Proto-Germanic), 'five'
        inherited *pénkʷe (Proto-Indo-European), 'five'

Ancestors

five (Middle English)
fif (Old English)
*fimf (Proto-West Germanic)
*fimf (Proto-Germanic)
*pénkʷe (Proto-Indo-European)

Cognates and doublets

pesë (Albanian)
πέντε (Ancient Greek)
հինգ (Armenian)
vijf (Dutch)
cinque (English)
finnuf (English)
ponzu (English)
fünf (German)
fimm (Icelandic)
quinque (Latin)
penki (Lithuanian)
پنج (Persian)

Sources

Updated August 2026

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