Other forms: willows
A willow is a tree with long thin branches that hang down towards the water. A weeping willow, willows along the bank, willow branches.
Willows grow near water and their wood is light and springy, which is why cricket bats are made of it and why baskets are woven from willow withies. The weeping willow is the drooping ornamental kind and is the one most people picture. Note pussy willow, which is the kind with soft grey catkins in early spring, and that willow bark was the original source of the compound that became aspirin.
1nounwillowA tree with long thin drooping branches that grows near water.
“There is a willow at the end of the garden that drops leaves in the pond.”
2nounwoodThe wood of that tree.
“A cricket bat is made of willow and always has been.”
willow is a tree.
Old English welig has cousins across the Germanic languages and the root may mean to bend or twist — which is exactly the property that made willow the basket-maker's wood. The tree is named for what you can do with it.
Proto-Indo-European
*welik-
Proto-Germanic
*wiligaz
Proto-West Germanic
*wilig
Old English
welig
Middle English
wilwe
English, today
willow
Built from
From Middle English wilwe, welew, variant of wilghe, from Old English welig, from Proto-West Germanic wilig, from Proto-Germanic wiligaz, from Proto-Indo-European welik- (compare (Arcadian) Ancient Greek ἑλίκη, hit 𒌑𒂖𒆪 (“grass”)), from wel- (“twist, turn”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA