soot

Origin

Inherited from Middle English soot, soote, sote, sot, from Old English sōt, from Proto-Germanic *sōtą (“soot”), from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”). Cognate with dated Dutch zoet (“soot”), German Low German Soot (“soot”), Danish sod (“soot”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish sot (“soot”), Icelandic sót (“soot”). Compare similar ō-grade formation the same Proto-Indo-European root in Old Irish suide (“soot”) and Balto-Slavic: Lithuanian súodžiai (“soot”), and Proto-Slavic *saďa (“soot”) (Russian са́жа (sáža), Polish and Slovak sadza, Bulgarian са́жда (sážda)).