God (word)

Earliest attestation of the Germanic word in the 6th century Codex Argenteus (Mt 5:9)

The word god continues Old English god (guþ, gudis in Gothic, gud in modern Scandinavian, God in Dutch, and Gott in modern German), from Proto-Germanic *. The original meaning and etymology of the Germanic word god has been hotly disputed, though most agree to a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *ǵhu-tó-m, which is the neuter passive perfect participle of the root *ǵhau-, *, which meant "to call, to invoke".

A significant number of scholars have connected this root with the names of three related Germanic tribes: the Geats, the Goths and the Gutar. These names may be derived from an eponymous chieftain Gaut, who was subsequently deified. He also sometimes appears in early Medieval sagas as a name of Odin or one of his descendants, a former king of the Geats (Gaut(i)), an ancestor of the Gutar (Guti), of the Goths (Gothus) and of the royal line of Wessex (Geats) and as a previous hero of the Goths (Gapt). The Lombardic form of Odin, Godan, may derive from cognate Proto-Germanic *.

The name God was used to represent Greek Theos, Latin Deus in Bible translations, first in the Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas. For the etymology of deus, see *dyeus. Greek theos is probably unrelated, and of uncertain origin. De Saussure tentatively connected Baltic and Germanic words for "spook," ultimately cognate with Latin fumus "smoke." See El (god) and YHWH for discussions of the Hebrew names for God.

Capitalization

KJV of 1611 (Psalms 23:1,2): Occurrence of "Lord" (and "God" in the heading)

The development of English orthography was dominated by Christian texts. Capitalized, "God" was first used to refer to the Judeo-Christian concept and may now signify any monotheistic conception of God, including the translations of the Arabic Allāh and the African Masai Engai.
* Adonai YHWH as "Lord God"
* YHWH Elohim as "Lord God"
* κυριος ο θεος As "Lord God" (in the New Testament)

The use of capitalization, as for a proper noun, has persisted to disambiguate the concept of a singular God from pagan deities for which lower case god has continued to be applied, mirroring the use of Latin deus. Pronouns referring to God are also often capitalized and are traditionally in the masculine gender, i.e. "He", "His" etc. However, in more recent times, some people have referred to God in feminine terms, such as "She" and "Her". (See: God and gender).