The word 'vase' entered English in the late Middle English period via French, which derived it from the Latin 'vās', meaning 'vessel' or 'dish'. The Latin term itself can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root wéh₁s-, which carried the sense of a container or vessel. This etymological journey illustrates a clear semantic continuity from a general term for a container in ancient Indo-European to its modern, more specialized meaning of an ornamental vessel for holding flowers. The shift in pronunciation, particularly the divergent US (/veɪs/) and UK (/vɑːz/) forms, reflects the word's adoption and adaptation through different linguistic channels.

The word 'vase' is a simplex loanword from French. It does not contain separable morphemes in its modern English spelling. Its ultimate origin is the Latin 'vās', meaning 'vessel' or 'container'.