neighbour: [OE] Etymologically, your neighbour is simply someone who ‘lives near’ you. It is a compound formed in the Old English period from nēah (ancestor of modern English nigh) and gebūr ‘dweller’ (a descendant of the prolific Germanic base *bū- ‘dwell’, which also produced English be, booth, bower, build, etc). Parallel formations in other Germanic languages include German nachbar and Swedish and Danish nabo. The derivative neighbourhood dates from the 15th century, but was not used in its main modern sense ‘district’ until the late 17th century. => be, booth, bower, build, burly, byre, husband, near
