peche (Middle English)

Where does "peche" come from?

The Middle English noun 'peche', meaning a peach or a peach tree, was borrowed from Middle French 'pesche'[1]. This Old French and Middle French form traces back to Late Latin 'persica'[1], which served as an abbreviation for 'mālum persicum', literally translating to 'Persian apple'[1]. The Latin adjective 'persicus' ultimately derives from 'Persae', meaning 'Persians'[5][7].

Open questions

• The Proto-Indo-European reconstruction for the root of mālum is considered dubious due to its limited distribution across language families, with borrowing from a pre-Indo-European substratum representing a more likely alternative. [6]

Full etymology tree

• peche (Middle English), 'A peach (fruit of the tree Prunus persica)'
  • borrowed pesche (Middle French), 'peach (fruit)'
    • inherited pesche (Old French), 'peach (fruit)'
      • inherited *pessica (Vulgar Latin)
        • inherited persica (Latin), 'nominative/accusative/vocative plural of persicum'
          • derived mālum persicum (Classical Latin)
            • derived persicum pōmum (Classical Latin)
              • derived persicus (Latin), 'Persian; of Persia'
                • derived Persae (Latin), 'inflection of Persa:'

Ancestors

• pesche (Middle French)
• pesche (Old French)
• persica (Latin)

Descendants and derived words

• peach (English)
• peach (English)
• peach (English)
• peach (English)

Sources

1. peche (Middle English) - Wiktionary
2. persica (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. pesche (Middle French) - Wiktionary
4. pesche (Old French) - Wiktionary
5. persicus (Latin) - Wiktionary
6. malum (Latin) - Wiktionary
7. persicum (Latin) - Wiktionary

Updated August 2026

More words starting with P

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