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Origin and history of Warwickshire

Warwickshire

11c., from Old English Wærincwicum + scir "district." The first element means "dwellings by the weir or river-dam," from *wæring + wic (see wick (n.2)).

also from 11c.

Entries linking to Warwickshire

wick(n.2)

"dairy farm," now surviving, if at all, as a localism in East Anglia or Essex, it once was the common Old English wic "dwelling place, lodging, house, mansion, abode," which then came to mean "village, hamlet, town," and later "dairy farm" (as in Gatwick "Goat-farm"). It is common in this latter sense 13c.-14c.

The word is from a general Germanic borrowing from Latin vicus "group of dwellings, village; a block of houses, a street, a group of streets forming an administrative unit" (from PIE root *weik- (1) "clan"). Compare Old High German wih "village," German Weichbild "municipal area," Dutch wijk "quarter, district," Old Frisian wik, Old Saxon wic "village."

*weik-(1)

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "clan, social unit above the household."

It might form all or part of: antoecian; bailiwick; Brunswick; diocese; ecology; economy; ecumenical; metic; nasty; parish; parochial; vicinage; vicinity; viking; villa; village; villain; villanelle; -ville; villein; Warwickshire; wick (n.2) "dairy farm."

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit visah "house," vit "dwelling, house, settlement;" Avestan vis "house, village, clan;" Old Persian vitham "house, royal house;" Greek oikos "house;" Latin villa "country house, farm," vicus "village, group of houses;" Lithuanian viešpats "master of the house;" Old Church Slavonic visi "village;" Gothic weihs "village."

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