Expert: Carol Pozefsky - 7/30/2009

Question
What is meaning + origin
What is meaning +orign of wine oorigin of the word"wine"

Answer
Hello, I hope you are having a fine week,
    According to Barhart's Dictionary of Etymology, the word wine appears in English "probably before 1200 in Layamon's book, Chronicle of Britain.  In Old English the word appears in Beowulf as 'win' and was borrowed from the Latin word 'vinum'."
    Barnhart continues: "It may be that the knowledge  of winemaking came originally from non-Indo-European peoples, but the relationship of the Indo-European words with Arabic and Ethiopic 'wain", Hebrew 'yauin' and Assyrian 'inu' is not understood.
    Related words for wine, also stemming from the Latin 'vinum' are Dutch 'wijn', German 'wein', and Swedish, Norwegian and Danish 'vin'.
    The best to you always,  Carol P.