/ˈneɪ.vəl/·noun·Before 900 CE — Old English nafela in glossaries and the Leechdoms; the PIE root is reconstructed to c. 3000–4000 BCE·Established
Origin
English 'navel' from OldEnglish nafela and Proto-Germanic *nabalō goes back to PIE *h₃nobʰ- — the same root as the 'nave' (hub) of a wheel, Sanskrit nābhi- (both navel and wheel-hub), and Greek omphalos, the stone at Delphi marking the centre of the world.
Definition
The small depression on the abdomen marking the site of the umbilical cord — from Old English nafela, PIE *h₃nobʰ- (navel, hub, central point), the same root that gives the 'nave' of a wheel.
The Full Story
Old English / Proto-GermanicPre-700 CE (Old English); PIE root c. 4000–2500 BCEwell-attested
TheEnglishword 'navel' descends from Old English nafela, attested before 900 CE. Old English nafela derives from Proto-Germanic *nabalō, which also givesGerman Nabel, Dutch navel, Old Norse nafli, Old Saxon navalo, and Old High German nabalo. The Proto-Germanic form descends from PIE *h₃nobʰ- or *nobh-, meaningboth
Did you know?
Thenave of a wheel and the navel of the body are the same word. In Sanskrit, nābhi- means both simultaneously — no metaphor required — and the Rigveda uses it in both senses in the same hymn. The Greeks called the sacred stone at Delphi the omphalos (a metathesised form of the same PIE root) because it marked the navel of the earth — the point where Zeus's two eagles
— is etymologically identical to 'navel'. Both words name the central point, the axis. In Norse cosmology, the world-tree Yggdrasil functions as the cosmic navel — the axis mundi, the nave of the universe — connecting the nine worlds. The omphalos stone at Delphi served the same function in Greek culture — the navel of the world. The PIE root thus represents one of the oldest surviving body-part terms, carried intact for at least six thousand years. Key roots: *h₃nobʰ- (Proto-Indo-European: "navel; hub; central point — the body-centre and the wheel-centre named by a single word"), *nabalō (Proto-Germanic: "navel; centre — ancestor of OE nafela, German Nabel, Dutch navel, ON nafli").