Leicestershire
lei·ces·ters·hire
noun
Origin
From Old English Lægreċeastresċīr. The middle and last element are ceaster (“town, city”) and scir (“district”), common in placenames. The first element is probably from the former name of the river Soar, *Ligora, *Ligera, of Celtic/Brythonic origin, from Proto-Celtic *legyā (“sediment”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”), similar to the French river Loire. By surface analysis, Leicester + -shire.
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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.