Word Origin Summary

Shire is attested in Middle English. Follow the ancestry chain below to trace where this term came from and how it branched into later descendants.

Ancestry Chain

1. *skīruProto-West Germanicinherited from
2. sċīrEnglishinherited from
3. sċīranEnglishinherited from
4. *skīrijanąProto-West Germanicinherited from

Descendants and Related Terms

• skíri

  Icelandic · borrowed from

• sir

  Welsh · borrowed from

• shire

  English · inherited from

• siorrachd

  Scottish Gaelic · derived from

• Clackmannan

  English · derived from

What You Can Explore

• 🗺️Geographic migration map — see where this word traveled
• 🌳Language family tree — trace connections across related languages
• 📅Historical timeline — when the word entered different languages
• 🔤Cognates — related words in other languages sharing the same root