Etymology
1. O.E.
beran "bear, bring, wear" (class IV strong verb; past tense
bær, pp.
boren), from P.Gmc.
*beranan (cf. O.H.G.
beran, O.N.
bera, Goth.
bairan "to carry"), from PIE root
*bher- meaning both "give birth" (though only Eng. and Ger. strongly retain this sense, and Rus. has
beremennaya "pregnant") and "carry a burden, bring" (see infer). Many senses are from notion of "move onward by pressure." O.E. past tense
bær became M.E.
bare; alternative
bore began to appear c.1400, but
bare remained the literary form till after 1600. Past participle distinction of
borne for "carried" and
born for "given birth" is 1775.
Ball bearings "bear" the friction;
bearing "way of carrying oneself" is in M.E.
2. Etymology tree
3. Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der.?
4. Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der.
5. Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer-der.
6. Proto-Germanic *berô
7. Proto-West Germanic *berō
8. Old English bera
9. Middle English bere
10. English bear
11. From Middle English bere, from Old English bera, from Proto-West Germanic *berō, from Proto-Germanic *berô (“bear”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”).
12. Cognates
13. Cognate with North Frisian beer (“bear”), Saterland Frisian Boar, Boare (“bear”), West Frisian bear (“bear”), Cimbrian and Mòcheno per (“bear”), Dutch beer (“bear”), German Bär (“bear”), German Low German Boor (“bear”), Limburgish baer, Béër (“bear”), Luxembourgish Bier (“bear”), Vilamovian baor, bar (“bear”), West Flemish beir (“bear”), Yiddish בער (ber, “bear”), Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian Bokmål bjørn (“bear”), Icelandic and Swedish björn (“bear”), Norwegian Nynorsk bjøinn, bjønn, bjørn (“bear”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌰 (*baira, “bear”); also Latin fiber (“beaver”), Greek φρύνος (frýnos, “toad”), Latvian bērs (“bay, brown”), Lithuanian bėras (“bay, reddish brown”), Belarusian бабёр (babjór, “beaver”), Bulgarian бобър (bobăr, “beaver”), Czech bobr (“beaver”), Macedonian дабар (dabar, “beaver”), Polish bober, bóbr (“beaver”) Russian бобёр (bobjór), бобр (bobr, “beaver”), Serbo-Croatian да̀бар, dàbar (“beaver”), Slovak bobor (“beaver”), Slovene bober (“beaver”), Ukrainian бобе́р (bobér, “beaver”), Armenian բորենի (boreni, “hyena”), Avestan 𐬠𐬀𐬡𐬭𐬀 (baβra, “beaver”), Northern Kurdish bor (“grey”), Ossetian бур (bur, “yellow”), Persian بور (bur, “blonde, fair; bay, reddish brown; brown”), Yaghnobi вур (vur, “brown”), Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhru, “ichneumon, mongoose”).
14. etymology notes
15. This is generally taken to be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“shining, brown”) (compare Tocharian A parno, Tocharian B perne (“radiant, luminous”), Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)), related to brown, bruin, and beaver.
16. On this theory, the Germanic languages replaced the older name of the bear, *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, with the epithet "brown one", presumably due to taboo avoidance; compare Russian медве́дь (medvédʹ, “bear”, literally “honey-eater”).
17. However, Ringe (2006:106) doubts the existence of a root *bʰer- meaning "brown" ("an actual PIE word of [the requisite] shape and meaning is not recoverable") and suggests that a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer- (“wild animal”) "should therefore perhaps be preferred", implying a Germanic merger of *ǵʰw and *gʷʰ (*gʷʰ may sometimes result in Germanic *b, perhaps e.g. in *bidjaną, but it also seems to have given the g in gun and the w in warm).
Verbs referencing "bear"
Frisian, Saterlandic bere, Russian
брать, Norwegian, nynorsk
bera, Swedish
bära, German, old spelling
gebären, Irish
beir, Dari
بردن, Danish
bære, Sanskrit
भरति, Polish
brać, Low Saxon böhren.