Origins
The word 'linen' carries within it the entire history of textile production — because linen, the fabric, is the oldest textile in human civilization. The word and the material have traveled together for thousands of years.
'Linen' comes from Old English 'līnen,' an adjective meaning 'made of flax,' from the noun 'līn' (flax). The Old English word derived from Proto-Germanic *līną, which was an early borrowing from Latin 'līnum' (flax, linen thread, anything made of linen). Latin 'līnum' came from Ancient Greek 'λίνον' (linon), which Homer uses in the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' for flax, linen cloth, and linen ropes.
The ultimate origin of the Greek word is uncertain and may predate the Indo-European language family. Flax (Linum usitatissimum) was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9,000 BCE — millennia before the Proto-Indo-European language community existed. The word for this ancient plant may be a 'Wanderwort,' a migratory word that spread with the technology of flax cultivation rather than through any single language family. Some linguists see it as a Mediterranean substrate word, borrowed into both Greek and Latin from a pre-Indo-European language of the region.
Literary History
Archaeological evidence for linen goes back far further than the word. In 2009, researchers discovered dyed flax fibers in Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia (the Caucasian country) dating to approximately 34,000 years ago — long before agriculture, let alone writing. Linen cloth from ancient Egypt dates to around 5,000 BCE, and the Egyptians developed linen production to extraordinary sophistication. Mummy wrappings were linen. Pharaonic priestly garments were linen. The finest Egyptian linen was so sheer it was nearly transparent.
The linguistic descendants of Latin 'līnum' permeate modern English in ways that most speakers never notice. 'Line' — the most common word for a one-dimensional extent — comes from Latin 'līnea,' which originally meant 'a linen thread' or 'a linen cord.' A 'line' was a thread stretched taut, and from this concrete sense grew the abstract geometric concept. 'Lineal,' 'linear,' 'delineate,' 'align,' and 'outline' all trace back to a piece of linen string.
'Lingerie' comes from French 'linge' (linen, household linen), from Latin 'linteum' (a linen cloth), from 'līnum.' Undergarments were traditionally made of linen — soft, absorbent, and durable against the skin — and the French word for them preserved the fabric's name long after cotton and silk replaced linen in most intimate apparel.
Latin Roots
'Linoleum' — the flooring material — is literally 'linseed oil' (from Latin 'līnum' + 'oleum,' oil) pressed onto a canvas backing. It was invented in 1860 by Frederick Walton, who named it from its key ingredient.
'Lint' (the fibers that accumulate in your dryer) comes from Middle English 'lynet,' from Latin 'linteum' (linen cloth) — lint was originally the soft scraping from linen cloth, used as a wound dressing.
The web of words radiating from a single flax plant — linen, line, lingerie, linoleum, lint, linseed, lintel (originally a linen beam, later a stone beam over a doorway) — demonstrates how a fundamental material technology can shape vocabulary across millennia and across languages.