Yoïn van SpijkSep 21, 2025

Historically, the word ‘nest’ consists of two parts.

The part ‘ne-‘ is related to ‘nether’, while ‘-st’ is related to the verb ‘to sit’. The distant Proto-Indo-European ancestor of ‘nest’ meant “place to sit down”.

That proto-word also produced Spanish ‘nido’, Portuguese ‘ninho’ and their Romance relatives, as well as Welsh ‘nyth’, Hindi ‘nīṛ’, and Serbo-Croatian ‘gnijezdo’.

Click my new graphic to learn more:

Show threadDavid HaskiyaSep 22, 2025
@yvanspijk In Swedish there's been a semantic shift where näste has an almost exclusively ominous association (eg huggormsnäste! = vipers nest, but fågelbo = birds nest) and in general is also perceived as an old-fashioned word.
Show threadYoïn van Spijk
@DavidH Ah, fascinating! What's the general word nowadays?
Sep 22, 2025 at 11:38amWeb
Show threadDavid HaskiyaSep 22, 2025
@yvanspijk -bo in most cases. Although when it comes to animals nests there are some words that are specific to the species. Like -kula for wolves or -lya for foxes
Show threadYoïn van SpijkSep 22, 2025
@DavidH Very interesting! Thanks!