Heath and Heather: Origins, Forms and Histories of Words Meaning Marsh, Swamp

The natural features of a region are its topography (from Greek topos ("place"). Marshes, swamps, and similar areas are important examples of topographic features.

In the current alphabetic series of terms that refer to such lands, here are the origins, forms, and histories of heath and heather. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Heath
Modern English heath comes from Middle English heath (14th century), from Old English haeth (before 12th century). The word is akin to Old High German heida ("heather") and Old Norse heithr ("field").

A heath is an open tract of uncultivated ground or wasteland (c. 1000). The word is often applied specifically to an extensive area of open uncultivated level land having poor, coarse, acidic soil; inferior drainage; rich supplies of peat on the surface; and characteristic plant life.

The name of such plant life is also heath. Originally (beginning before 700), the word was applied vaguely to such plants. That general use of the word died out by the Middle English period.

However, the word heath has long (since c. 1000) referred specifically to shrubs and small trees of the family Ericaceae, which thrive on the barren, acidic, poorly drained land of heaths. The family includes azaleas, blueberries, mountain laurel, rhododendrons, and the low evergreen shrubs of the genus Erica. Members of the heath family extend as far north as the subarctic, and along mountain chains as far south as the tropics.

Heather
Heather is the name, Scottish in origin but now in general use, for a low evergreen shrub (Calluna vulgaris) of the heath family.

Modern English heather (18th century) comes from Middle English northern dialectal hather (16th century) and hathir (14th century), which are probably modifications, influenced by Scottish hadder and hedder ("heather"), of Middle English heath (14th century), a native word only in southern and midland England.

Heather is the chief vegetation on many soggy wastelands of northern and western Europe and is also widespread in Asia, North America, and Greenland. Calluna vulgaris is distinguished from true heaths, which are sometimes loosely called heather, by the lobes of its calyx, which cover the petals, while in true heaths the petals conceal the calyx.

Even though tracts of land called heaths are usually referred to as wastelands, they actually yield products of value. For example, long heather stems tied together make brooms, shorter ones serve as brushes, and long shoots of heather are woven into baskets.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.