Etymology Dictionary

ACORN,  the fruit of the oak.  (E.)   Chaucer speaks of 'acornes of okes;' tr. of Boethius, b. ii. met. 5, p. 50.—A.S. æcern, æcirn; pl. æcirnu, which occurs in the A.S. version of Gen. xliii. 11, where the exact meaning is not clear, though it is applied to some kind of fruit. + Icel. akarn, an acorn. + Dan. agern, an acorn. + Du. aker, an acorn. + G. ecker, the fruit of the oak or beech; Fick, iii. 8. + Goth. akran, fruit; cf. the comp. akrana-laus, fruitless.—A.S. æcer, a field, an acre.  See Acre.  ¶ The suffix -ern has been changed to -orn, from a notion that æcern meant an oak-corn, an etymology which is, indeed, still current.  It is remarkable that acorn is related, etymologically, neither to oak nor to corn.   β. If it be remembered that acre should rather be spelt acer or aker (the latter is common in Mid. Eng.), and that acorn should rather be acern or akern, it will be seen that akern is derived from aker much in the same way as silvern from silver, or wooden from wood.   γ. The cognate languages help here.  1. The Icel. akarn is derived from akr, a field, not from eik, an oak.  2. The Du. aker is related to akker, a field, not to eik, an oak; indeed this has been so plainly felt that the word now used for 'acorn' in Dutch is generally eikel.  3. So in German, we have eichel, an acorn, from eiche, an oak, but the word ecker is related to acker, a field, and stands for äcker.  4. The Danish is clearest of all, forming agern, an acorn, from ager, a field.  5. That the Goth. akran, fruit, is immediately derived from akrs, a field, has never been overlooked.   δ. Thus the original sense of the A.S. neut. pl. æcirnu or æcernu was simply 'fruits of the field,' understanding 'field' in the sense of wild open country; cf. Gk. ἀγρός, a field, the country, and ἄγριος, wild.   ε. It will now be seen that Chaucer's expression 'acornes of okes' is correct, not tautological.