sky
UK[skaɪ]US[skaɪ]
n
the space above the earth that you can see when you look up, where clouds and the sun, moon, and stars appear
n
the sky in a particular place or at a particular time, especially its appearance or weather conditions
Etymology
the modern english word 'sky' is a borrowing from old norse 'ský', which meant 'cloud'. this replaced the old english word for the heavens, 'heofon'. the original proto-indo-european root is thought to be (s)keu-, meaning 'to cover, conceal', which also gave rise to words like 'obscure' and 'hide'. the semantic shift from 'cloud' to the expanse in which clouds appear illustrates a metonymic process, where the covering object came to signify the entire visible vault above. this evolution captures the viking-age influence on english and a fundamental change in how the celestial sphere was linguistically conceptualized.
Analysis
this word is a simplex. it is a loanword from old norse 'ský' meaning 'cloud'. its functional role is as a complete, indivisible root.
Examples
the sky turned a deep shade of orange as the sun set.
after days of rain, we finally saw a clear blue sky.
pilots must be trained to fly in all kinds of sky conditions.