An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Luchs

by Friedrich Kluge

Luchs, masculine, ‘lynx,’ from the equivalent Middle High German and Old High German luhs, masculine; corresponding to Old Saxon lox, Dutch losch, Anglo-Saxon lox, masculine. The s of this Old Teutonic stem is a suffix, as in Fuchs; hence Swedish lô (Gothic *laúhô), and in the non-Teutonic languages Lithuanian lúszis, Greek λυγκ-, ‘lynx.’ It is probably related to the root luh in Licht (Old Icelandic ljós, ‘light,’ Anglo-Saxon lîxan, ‘to give light’), since the sharp, gleaming eyes of the lynx may have given rise to the name.