earth

Meanings

Proper Noun

• Alternate spelling of Earth; Our planet, third out from the Sun.

Noun

• Soil.
• Any general rock-based material.
• The ground, land (as opposed to the sky or sea).
• A connection electrically to the earth ( ground); on equipment: a terminal connected in that manner.
• The lair or den (as a hole in the ground) of an animal such as a fox.
• A region of the planet; a land or country.
• Worldly things, as against spiritual ones.
• The world of our current life (as opposed to heaven or an afterlife).
• The people on the globe.
• The human body.
• The aforementioned soil- or rock-based material, considered one of the four or five classical elements.
• Any of certain substances now known to be oxides of metal, which were distinguished by being infusible, and by insolubility in water.

Verb

• To connect electrically to the earth.
• To bury.
• To hide, or cause to hide, in the earth; to chase into a burrow or den.
• To burrow.

Origin

• From Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe, from Proto-West Germanic *erþu, from Proto-Germanic *erþō ("dirt, ground, earth") (compare West Frisian ierde, Low German Eerd, Dutch aarde, Dutch Low Saxon eerde, German Erde, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian jord), related to *erwô (compare Old High German ero, perhaps Old Norse jǫrfi), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁er- (compare Ancient Greek *ἔρα in ἔραζε, perhaps Tocharian B yare ("gravel").
• Probably unrelated, and of unknown etymology, is Old Armenian երկիր ("earth"). Likewise, the phonologically similar Proto-Semitic *ʔarṣ́- – whence Arabic أَرْض, Hebrew אֶרֶץ – is probably not related.