Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian note yield (West Frisian nôt , noat grain, corn), Middle Dutch nōte yield, ripe crops, tilling of arable land, noot profit, use (Dutch regional (West Flanders) note yield), Middle Low German nōte , nōt yield, profit, use, and (with neuter a -stem) Old Icelandic not (plural) use, utility, and (with n -stem) Gothic nuta catcher, fisherman < an ablaut variant (zero-grade) of the Germanic base of Old English nēotan (see nait v.²). In Shetland use probably < the unattested Norn reflex of the early Scandinavian word represented by Old Icelandic not (see above).With sense 5 compare Old Icelandic nytja to milk (see nitte v.).

Etymology: In Old English (in an apparently isolated attestation in sense 1a and in the compound note writer n. at Compounds 1b(a), and also as second element of wællnōt deadly mark) < classical Latin nota (see below); apparently subsequently reborrowed < (i) Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French note (French note ) melody, tune (1155), musical sound, written character representing a musical sound (end of the 14th cent.), stigma, reproach (end of the 12th cent.), brief written record, legal abstract (1370), written message (14th cent.), annotation (1530), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin nota mark, sign, symbol, quality, character, mark placed against a word or passage, mark used to represent a sound, letter, word, a shorthand character, censors' mark, stigma, in post-classical Latin also a melody, tune, tone of definite pitch (from 12th cent. in British sources), written character representing a musical sound (from 13th cent. in British sources), musical notation (11th cent.; from early 14th cent. in British sources), document, record (early 12th cent.), brief record, memorandum (from early 13th cent. in British sources), (in law) note of essentials of agreement (12th cent.; from early 13th cent. in British sources), (in theology) sign of the true Church (1529 in a work title), a characteristic mark of a disease (1780 in W. Cullen Synopsis Nosologiae Methodicae II. p. xxxii; compare quot. a1790 at nota n.), of uncertain origin (see below). Compare Spanish nota (1250), Old Occitan nota (mid 13th cent.), Italian nota (13th cent.), Portuguese nota (13th cent.), Catalan nota (c1300). See also note v.²It has been suggested that classical Latin nota is cognate with nōscere to know (see know v.), but this would present phonological difficulties. With by note , with note (see sense 6c) compare Anglo-Norman par note , ové note . With of note (see sense 12a) compare Middle French de notte (second half of the 14th cent.), de note (mid 15th cent.).