The Etymology of Toe
Toe descends from Old English tā, with a regular plural tān (like ox / oxen) that survived into Middle English as toon and lingers in northern English dialect. The form goes back cleanly to Proto-Germanic *taihwō, with cognates across the family — German Zehe, Dutch teen, Old Norse tá, Swedish tå. The deeper Indo-European source is debated; one widely cited proposal traces it to PIE *deyḱ-, to show, point (the same root behind Latin dicere, English token, Greek deíknumi), on the grounds that the toe is the "pointing" digit of the foot. Other Indo-European etymologies are equally plausible. The reconstruction is disputed. What is clear is that the everyday English word and its German and Dutch siblings are all the same Germanic word, and that the digit on the foot has been called by some form of "to-" or "tah-" in Germanic-speaking communities for several thousand years.