Etymology: < early Scandinavian (compare Old Icelandic agi terror, dread, uproar, respect, discipline, constraint, Old Swedish aghi order, discipline (Swedish regional age fear, dread, compare Swedish aga discipline), Old Danish awe , aughæ fear, discipline (Danish ave order, discipline)), weak noun < the same Germanic base as eye n.² Compare earlier eye n.² and owe n.The word was borrowed in the areas of Scandinavian settlement and spread from there, eventually superseding eye n.² (compare the discussion at that entry). As with eye , ‘fear, terror, dread’ was probably the original sense, but over the course of later Middle English and the 16th century ideas of reverence or veneration became increasingly prominent. The transition from fear to reverence as the primary aspect of awe seems complete by the 18th century and is visible in the treatment of the word by lexicographers (notably Johnson) and in a growing number of examples which contrast awe and fear (e.g. quot. 1771 at Phrases 1b). Some 19th-century examples retain a strong element of fear, but never to the exclusion of the element of reverence, respect, or wonder, and have hence been interpreted as sense 1b (see, e.g., quots. 1815 at sense 1a, 1862 at sense 1a).

Etymology: Probably < Anglo-Norman auve, ave and Middle French aube, aue (11th cent. in Old French as alve , French aube ), probably < classical Latin alapa (although this is only attested in sense ‘slap’: see alapate v.), in a suggested underlying sense ‘palm of the hand, flat instrument’, perhaps reflected by post-classical Latin alapa (apparently) kind of board used in bookbinding (9th cent.) and various senses in the later Romance languages; compare especially Catalan àlep (15th cent.), Spanish álabe (13th cent.), both denoting the blade of a waterwheel.Compare post-classical Latin alva, alvus part of a watermill (from early 13th cent. in British sources), apparently < Anglo-Norman.

Etymology: Apparently shortened < August n., for metrical reasons (with the spelling remodelled after the rhyming word lawe).

Etymology: < awe n.¹Compare Old English onēgan to fear, (reflexive) to be frightened ( < on- on- prefix + *ēgan (unattested as a simplex); cognate with Old Icelandic œgja , ægja to frighten, to threaten, Gothic ogjan to frighten, a causative formation < the same Germanic base as Gothic og I fear: see owe n. and compare eye n.²).