Yeo

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A river flowing through Devon and Somerset in southwest England ; a family name of English origin
2. A watercourse in the southwest of England, in Devon and Somerset ; a surname common in England
3. A river rising on Dartmoor in the southwest of England ; an English family name borne by many people

Etymology: "Yeo" is a word you are most likely to meet in place names, such as the many English rivers and villages whose names end in it, rather than in ordinary speech. It is an old English word for a river or stream, descended from Old English "ēa," which meant running water in general. Its roots go back through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European base meaning water or flowing water, the same ancient root behind the Latin "aqua," so "yeo" and "aqua" are doublets: two words that developed separately from one common ancestor. The word survived mostly in fixed names long after it faded from everyday use. Names like Yeovil and Yeo, and the river Yeo in Devon, preserve the older sense of water or stream within their structure, which is why an unexpected place name can give away a long-vanished meaning. Its sister forms in other languages include "eau" in French, which descends from the same Latin relative, showing how one Indo-European word for water spread across the continent in very different forms.