An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/See

by Friedrich Kluge

See, masculine and feminine, ‘lake, sea,’ from Middle High German sê, masculine and feminine, ‘sea, lake, ocean’ (the masculine predominates, and is used without distinction in all the senses); Old High German sêo, masculine, ‘sea, ocean,’ and in these significations occur Old Saxon sêo, Dutch see, feminine, Anglo-Saxon sœ̂, masculine and feminine, English sea; Old Icelandic sœ́r, masculine, ‘ocean’; Gothic saiws, masculine, ‘lake, marsh.’ The common Teutonic *saiwi-, ‘ocean, lake,’ does not belong to any Teutonic verbal stem; Latin saevus, ‘savage’ (Greek ἀιόλος, ‘mobile’), seems to be allied (See, literally ‘the savage element’). While See is peculiar to Teutonic, Meer is common to some of the West Aryan languages.