Etymology
With Indo European origin (*prtús from *por- or *per) in the verb fara (travelling/ferrying), the Norse noun substantive fjǫrðr means a "lake-like" waterbody used for passage and ferrying.
The Scandinavian fjord, Proto-Scandinavian *ferþuz, is the origin for similar European words: Icelandic fjörður, Swedish fjärd (for Baltic waterbodies), Scottish firth. The Danish even use fjord for shallow lagoons as well as minor bodies of water cut into land; compare Scottish loch. The Germans call the narrow long bays of Schleswig-Holstein Förde but the Norwegian bays Fjord. The word is also related to English ford (in German Furt, Low German Ford or Vörde, in Dutch names voorde, cf. Vilvoorde), Greek poros, and Latin portus. Fjord/firth/Förde as well as ford/Furt/Vörde/voorde refer to a Germanic verb for to travel: Swedish fara, Dutch varen, German fahren; English to fare has lost that meaning. The one geographic object is a waterbody that allows the traveller to enter the land by boat, the other one is the shallow site in a waterbody that allows the traveller to cross the water on foot, horse or wheels.
As a loanword from Norwegian, it is one of the few words in the English language to start with the digraph fj, although the word was for a long time normally rendered fiord, a spelling preserved in place names such as Grise Fiord, but now generally only current in New Zealand English.
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