felt

Note: Germanic *feltaz- "felt" has traditionally been taken as an e-grade ablaut derivative corresponding to o-grade in Old High German falzan, felzan "to inset grooves in a sword blade," falzunga "joint, juncture," continued in Middle High German by givalzen "damaged, knocked or chopped off," velzen "to inlay (gemstones)," valz "mating of birds, channel in a sword blade, middle of a double-edged blade (where two pieces are joined), groove separating the back and cover of a bookbinding." Outside German the only apparent Germanic verbal cognate is modern East Frisian falten "to break down flax fiber," and falte "tool used to soften flax." (See A. Lloyd and R. Lühr, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Band 3, pp. 44-45.) The original meaning of this verb is taken to have been "to strike, beat," with beating taken to be part of the felt-making process. Another likely nominal derivative of this verb is contained in a word for "anvil" in West Germanic: Old English anfealt, Old High German anafalz (with *falt-) alongside Old English anefilt, anefilte, Middle Dutch aenvilte, anevilte (with *feltja-) (see anvil). Germanic *felt-, *falt- has been further connected to a presumed Indo-European *pel-d-, *pol-d-, from which also allegedly descends Latin pellere "to beat against, push, strike." However, this reconstruction of pellere has more recently been disfavored on both phonetic and semantic grounds—see pulse entry 1. Also of relevance to Germanic *feltaz- is the Slavic etymon represented by Old Russian/Russian Church Slavic pŭlstĭ "felt, felt rug," Russian polst' "felt" (now largely superseded by vójlok, of Turkic origin), Serbian (regional) pȕst, Slovene pôlst, Czech plst, Polish pilść; for pre-Slavic the etymon has been reconstructed as *pl̥d-ti "act of pounding, something pounded" (see C. Michiel Driessen, "Towards an Indo-European Term for 'felt'," Journal of Indo-European Studies, vol. 32 [2004], pp. 25-42). Though the relationship is suggestive, a common etymon for "felt" and definite connections to an Indo-European verbal root are still lacking. See also pileus.