Old English Common Germanic East Germanic West Germanic North Germanic Dutch German Old Norse Proto-Indo-European brewer's yeast barley ale
The word beer comes into present-day English from Old English bēor, itself from Common Germanic; although the word is not attested in the East Germanic branch of the language family, it is found throughout the West Germanic and North Germanic dialects (modern Dutch and German bier, Old Norse bjórr). The earlier etymology of the word is debated: the three main theories are that the word originates in Proto-Germanic *beuzą (putatively from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeusóm), meaning 'brewer's yeast, beer dregs'; that it is related to the word barley, or that it was somehow borrowed from Latin bibere 'to drink'.
