both

Pronoun

Middle English bothe, from pronominal use of bothe both entry 3

Conjunction

Middle English bothe, from the use of the quantifier bothe both entry 3 as a correlative conjunction

Adjective

Middle English bothe, a compound of bo "two of a pair, both" and the, definite article, going back to Old English bā þā "both the, both these" (attested once late), from bā, feminine and sometimes neuter nominative of bēgen "both" + þā, plural of se, sēo, þæt, definite article; bēgen, bā, bū (neuter) going back to Germanic *bai (whence also Gothic bai "both," neuter ba), going back to Indo-European *h₂(e)nt-b^hoh₁ (with loss of the initial element and assimilation of the endings to the nominal declensions); other Germanic languages show early merger of the quantifier and the article, as Old Frisian bēthe, beithe "both," Old Saxon bēthie, bēthiu, Old High German beide, bēde, Old Icelandic báðir (but genitive beggja, probably after tveggja, genitive of tveir "two") — more at ambi-, the entry 1

Note: Middle English bothe is also thought to reflect the Old Norse form exemplified by Old Icelandic báðir, given the scarcity of the evidence for the collocation bā þā in Old English, though other inflected forms of begen, bā, bū followed by the inflected article are attested; see discussion and note on forms in Oxford English Dictionary, third edition. The Old English masculine nominative bēgen mirrors twēgen, the masculine of "two" (compare twain entry 3); the origin of the forms is uncertain—see discussion and bibliography in R. D. Fulk, A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages, John Benjamins, 2018, pp. 222-23.