Skull opens with sk-, which in English usually means a word from Scandinavian or Low German rather than the native line, since Old English softened its own sc- to sh-. The likeliest source is Old Norse skalli, "a bald head, skull," a word found across Scandinavian.
The evidence is not clean, though, and the entry is honest about it: the word's early prominence in southwestern English texts argues instead for a Dutch or Low German source, though no such cognate has quite the right meaning. Derivation from Old French escuelle, "bowl," has been proposed and looks unlikely on both sound and sense. What is clear is that skull displaced a native word: Old English called it heafod-bolla, "head-bowl," and Middle English glossed Latin cranium as braynpanne.
skull (n.) "cranium, the bony framework of the head," c. 1200, sculle , probably from Old Norse skalli "a bald head, skull," a general Scandinavian word (compare Swedish skulle , Norwegian skult ), itself probably related to Old English scealu "husk" (see shell (n.)). But early prominence in southwestern texts suggests rather origin from a Dutch or Low German cognate (such as Dutch schol "turf, piece of ice," but the sense of "head bone framework" is wanting). Derivation from Old French escuelle "bowl" seems unlikely on grounds of sound and sense. An Old English word for skull was heafod-bolla . Latin cranium also is glossed at least once in Middle English as braynpanne . also from c. 1200
skull came in through Old Norse, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
How that family writes these sounds
| /sk/ at the start | sk-, never sc- or sh-sky, skin, skirt, skull |
What gives it away on the page
| sk- | Native sc- had already softened to sh-, so a hard sk- came from somewhere else.sky, skin, skirt, skill, skull |
Placing it without the spelling
| a hard /sk/ at the start | Old Norsesky, skin, skirt, skull |
Old Norse in the spelling guide · guess another word's family