Either of the two folds of skin that can be closed over the eyeball — from Old English ēaglid, a compound of ēage (eye) and hlid (cover, lid), both purely Germanic elements.
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Old Englishc. 700–1100 CEwell-attested
The word 'eyelid' is a transparent OldEnglish compound formed from two native Germanic elements: ēage (eye) and hlid (lid, cover, gate). The compound is therefore literally 'the eye's cover' — a straightforward anatomical description built entirely from inherited vocabulary.
The first element, ēage, derives from Proto-Germanic *augō (eye), from PIE
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OldEnglish hlid was pronounced with a distinct hl- sound at the start — a cluster English laterdropped entirely. Thesame shift turned hlāf into loaf and hlūd into loud. When the h fell silent, 'eyelid' lost its ghost consonant, leaving a word that looks simple but carries the trace of a sound English no longer
shifts defining the Germanic branch.
The second element, hlid, derives from Proto-Germanic *hlidą (cover, gate, lid), from PIE *klei- or *klid- (to lean, cover, close). This is the same word as 'lid' for a pot or box — the eyelid is the eye's lid in the most literal sense. In Old English, hlid carried the characteristic hl- initial cluster — a feature that simplified to plain l- as the language evolved into Middle and Modern English. The hl- cluster is also visible in OE hlāf (loaf), hlūd (loud), hleapan (leap). The compound survives intact into Modern English with only expected phonological changes: ēage → eye, hlid → lid. German Augenlid (Auge + Lid) and Dutch ooglid (oog + lid) demonstrate that the compound is pan-Germanic. Key roots: *h₃ekʷ- (Proto-Indo-European: "to see; eye — yields Latin oculus, Greek ōps, Germanic *augō"), *klei- (Proto-Indo-European: "to lean, cover, close — yields Germanic *hlidą (lid, cover)"), *augō (Proto-Germanic: "eye — ancestor of OE ēage, German Auge, Dutch oog, Gothic augō"), *hlidą (Proto-Germanic: "cover, gate, lid — ancestor of OE hlid, German Lid, Dutch lid").