1.
Kluge2002: Ge Lärche, mHGe lerche, larche, oHGe lerihha. 2.
Following these lines in EtymOnline we find: Engl
druid, 1560s, from Fr
druide, from Lat
druidae (pl.), from Gaul
Druides, from Celt compound *
dru-wid‑, probably representing oCelt *
derwos ‘true’/pIE *
dru‑ ‘tree’ (especially oak; see
tree) + *
wid‑ ‘to know’. Hence, literally, perhaps, ‘they who know the oak’ (perhaps in allusion to divination from mistletoe). AnglSax, too, used identical words to mean ‘tree’ and ‘truth’ (
treow). – Engl
tree, oEngl
treo,
treow ‘tree’ (also ‘timber, wood, beam, log, stake’), from pGerm *
treuwaz‑, from pIE *
drew-o‑, from *
deru‑ ‘oak’ (Skr
dru ‘tree, wood’,
daru ‘wood, log’; Grk
drŷs ‘oak’,
drȳmós ‘copse, thicket’,
dóry ‘beam, shaft of a spear’, oChSlav
drievo, Ru
derevo ‘tree, wood’; Alb
drusk ‘oak’). This is from pIE *
drew-o‑, a suffixed form of the root *
deru‑ ‘to be firm, solid, steadfast’ (see
true), with specialized sense ‘wood, tree’ and derivatives referring to objects made of wood. – The widespread use of words originally meaning ‘oak’ in the sense ‘tree’ probably reflects the importance of the oak to ancient Indo-Europeans. In oEngl and mEngl also ‘thing made of wood’, especially the cross of the Crucifixion and a gallows (such as
Tyburn tree, famous gallows outside London). mEngl also had pl.
treen, adj.
treen (oEngl
treowen ‘of a tree, wooden’).