Origin
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, thrift came to the English language from an Old Norse verb meaning grasp or get hold of. Among several definitions, Merriam-Webster defines thrift as: careful management especially of money and claims its origins are Middle English, from Old Norse meaning prosperity, from thrīfask to thrive from the 13th century.
It is interesting that thrift, with roots as a verb, formally remains a noun by today's English standards. Though it is not a proper verb, thrifting or to thrift has found place in modern American language out of necessity. There seems to be no other verb that fits the term to shop for re-purposed/re-used products.
Thrifty is an adjective describing someone who spends carefully and saves money.
Read more about this topic: Thrifting
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)