Gauche, from gauche (French), from gauchir (Middle French), from gaucher (Old French), from welkan (Frankish), from *wankjan (Proto-Germanic). Proto-Indo-European root *weng. A variant of *wankjan, of course, is *wenkanan (also Proto-Germanic), whence wink.
Compare wanken (Old High German) with vakka (Old Norse).
Thanks, J.!
This post's theme word is antanaclasis, "the repetition of a word in different senses." Having experienced this derivation, now I am interested in tracing the changing meaning of the word!
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