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morrow

UK/ˈmɒɹəʊ/US/ˈmɑɹoʊ/
nounC2Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,469 of 15,258neutral

The morrow is the following day, in old use. On the morrow, the morrow came, good morrow.

It is entirely archaic and survives in poetry, in Shakespeare and in the fixed phrase on the morrow. Good morrow was the ordinary morning greeting until about the seventeenth century. Note that tomorrow is to plus morrow, so the everyday word contains the archaic one; and that morrow and morning are the same root, because the following day begins with its morning.

Definitions of morrow

  1. 1nounmorrowThe following day, in old use.C2

    “The knight promised to return on the morrow with fresh horses.”

morrow is the next day.

Remember it

MORROW → toMORROW, with the to torn off

A calendar on the wall with the word tomorrow printed across it, and somebody has torn the first two letters clean off. What is left is the day itself.

hooks ontotomorrow

Where it comes from

Old English morgen meant both morning and the following day — the same word for both, which is why tomorrow and morning are relatives. Morrow is the surviving day sense and morning the surviving time sense.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *murganaz

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *morgan

  3. Old English

    morgen

  4. Middle English

    morwe

  5. English, today

    morrow

From Middle English morwe, morwen, from Old English morgen, from Proto-West Germanic morgan, morgin, from Proto-Germanic murganaz, murginaz; compare Dutch morgen and German Morgen. a doublet of morgen and morn.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

Related words

the morgen family

tomorrow

morrow — used about once every 1,422 pages · #5,469 · point at the bar for the others