Added 8 October 2026
gift
/ɡɪft/ noun
In Latin: dōnum, mūnus, xenium Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about gift at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
verb
Origin
From Middle English yifte, ȝift, partly from Old English ġift, ġyft (“giving, consideration, dowry, wedding”) and Old Norse gipt (“gift, present, wedding”); both from Proto-Germanic *giftiz (“gift”). Equivalent to give + -t (etymologically yive + -t). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian jefte (“gift”), Dutch gift (“gift”) and its doublet gif (“poison”), German Gift (“poison”), Luxembourgish Gëft (“poison”), Vilamovian gejft, gyjft (“poison”), Yiddish גיפֿט (gift, “poison”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish gift (“poison”), Icelandic gift (“gift”). Doublet of yift. Distantly related to English habit, from Latin habitus.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)