room

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *Hrew-?

Proto-Indo-European *(H)rewH-der.

Proto-Germanic *rūmą

Proto-West Germanic *rūm

Old English rūm

Middle English roum

English room

From Middle English roum (“room, space”), from Old English rūm (“room, space”), from Proto-West Germanic *rūm (“room”), from Proto-Germanic *rūmą (“room”), from Proto-Indo-European *(H)rewH- (“to root; to rip, tear”), from *Hrew- (“to tear out, open”).

Cognates

Cognate with North Frisian rüm (“room, space”), Saterland Frisian and Low German Ruum (“room, space”), Dutch ruim (“open space; cargo hold”), German and Luxembourgish Raum (“room, space”), Vilamovian raojm (“room”), Danish and Swedish rum (“room, space”), Faroese and Icelandic rúm (“space, room”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk rom (“room, space”), Gothic 𐍂𐌿𐌼 (rum, “room, space”); also Irish rúsc (“bark”), Manx roost (“bark; peel, rind”), Scottish Gaelic rùsg (“rind; bark; fleece; shell”), Welsh rhisgl (“bark”), Latin rūs (“country, fields, lands; estate, farm; village”), Ancient Greek ὀρύσσω (orússō), ὀρύττω (orúttō, “to dig”), Latvian raut (“to pull with force”), Lithuanian rauti (“to grub, pull”), Belarusian рыць (rycʹ, “to dig”), Bulgarian ри́я (ríja, “to excavate”), Czech rýt (“to dig; to engrave”), Polish ryć (“to dig”), Russian рыть (rytʹ, “to dig; to burrow, mine”), Slovak ryť (“to dig; to engrave”), Slovene riti (“to dig”), Ukrainian ри́ти (rýty, “to dig, excavate”), Central Kurdish ڕێو (rêw, “public hair”), Tocharian A kärpi (“raw, rough; common”), Tocharian B kärpiye (“raw, rough; common”), Sanskrit लोमन् (loman), रोमन् (roman, “body hair; down, wool”). More at rural. Doublet of Raum, a surname from German.

The word superficially appears to be an exception to the Great Vowel Shift, which might have produced the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/, but the retention of Middle English /uː/ before /m/ is regular. In fact, /aʊ/ does not occur before non-coronal consonants in Standard Modern English native vocabulary. Some dialects did undergo diphthongization in such a position and the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/ occurs, for example, in Lancashire.