From: HenHanna@NewsGrouper

DDeden  posted:

>
> I can make no sense of the claimed etymology of 'tall' at etymology online
nor at Wiktionary.
>
> Wik: From Middle English tall, talle, tal (“seemly, becoming, handsome,
good-looking, excellent, good, valiant, lively in speech, bold, great, large,
big”), from Old English *tæl, ġetæl (“swift, ready, having mastery
of”), from Proto-
Germanic *talaz (“submissive, pliable, obedient”), from Prot
-Indo-European *dol-, *del- (“to aim, calculate, adjust, reckon”).
>
> Does anyone agree with that?



The English word tall originated in the early 16th century, but its roots go
back much further. It comes from Middle English tal, talle, meaning
“handsome,” “brave,” or “worthy,” and from Old English getæl,
meaning “quick” or “active”
.​

From a linguistic standpoint, its evolution is striking:

Old English getæl meant “prompt, nimble, active.”

Middle English tal described someone “valiant” or “fair in
appearance.”

By the 1520s, tall came to mean “having great stature,” first applied to
people and later to objects.

By the 1580s, it gained the modern sense of “of more than average height.”

The figurative sense “exaggerated” (as in “tall tale”) appeared in
American English by the mid-19th century.​

Etymologically, tall shares distant Germanic roots with Old High German
gizal (“quick”) and Gothic untals (“indocile”).​

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