Etymology: Origin uncertain; some suggest identity with Old English tæpped , tæppet , *tęped (plural tæppedu , tepedu ) carpet, hanging, etc. = Old High German teppid , -ith , -it , tepid , -it : both < Latin tapēte (tapēta , tapētum ) a carpet, tapestry hanging, bed-cover, table-cover. But there are great difficulties both of phonology and of sense. Others suggest a derivative of tip n.¹The normal and regular representation of Old English tæppet down to 1600 was tapet n.; and phonetic development of i out of a would be abnormal; the rare Middle English tepet and Scots tepat are probably < tipet. The ordinary meaning of the Old English and Middle English word, and of the Old High German, was ‘carpet’, as in Latin, but in Ælfric's Vocab., tæppet occurs under the heading Vestium Nomina, as if a name of a garment. Yet the gloss ‘Sipla an healfhruh tæppet’, seems to come from the same source as one in the 15th cent. Nominale, under the heading De Lectis et Ornamentis eorum, ‘Hec amphicapa est tapeta ex utraque parte villosa. Hec sipha idem est’ (Wright-Wülcker 744/5), where the sipha or tapeta is evidently a bedcover; so that the Ælfric entry is probably placed under the wrong heading. A change of meaning from ‘carpet’ or ‘bedcover’ to the senses above, is very improbable. Derivation of tippet < tip is favoured by the fact that German zipfel, originally diminutive of zipf ‘tip’, has the senses ‘tip, point, end, lappet, tail’, etc.

Etymology: perhaps alteration of tiptoe v.