What is the oldest continually used word in the english language?

by [deleted]

I'm thinking a word that hasn't changed since being introduced.

vhcngh

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The only words that would qualify are the ones which have only recently been introduced, which ultimately means you're just looking at neologisms.

Language is constantly changing and words are not exempt from that. Even if you had a word that was pretty steady in meaning over the centuries, the pronunciation would have changed.

On top of that you have the issue of what you're defining as the history of English. Is Middle English still English? Is Old English? Is Anglo-Frisian or West Germanic? If you go back far enough all the words have changed.

So, even if you could be certain that a meaning of a single word had not undergone subtle changes, you'd still have to figure out a way to objectively define when a word stops being that word, or when English stops being English.

It's just not something you can really quantify. Any lines you draw are going to be subjective and entirely artificial, since there's nothing inherent in the language which would otherwise server as consistent demarcation.

In other words, it's not really a question that you can answer because it's not a question that reflects the reality of language development.