The weather here today is gorgeous; 80 degrees, bright and sunny, with a good breeze making it perfectly comfortable. After the humidity of the last couple days, it feels especially sweet. My mother, after finishing work, decided to turn off the air conditioning and open up the house. I was in the kitchen when she walked in and said, "guess I could open all these windies". She was referring to the windows in the kitchen and was just being silly (a pretty natural state for her) but it made me think: if she opens all the windows it will let in all this wind. So I said, "do you think windows are called that because they let in wind?"

Mom laughed and said, "I feel another blog coming on..."

So here's to mom. The etymology of window does in fact directly come from the word wind. The OED (remember my favorite dictionary...) gives the following etymology.

[ME. windo e, a. ON. vindauga, f. vindr WIND n.¹ + auga EYE n.¹ (See also WIND-DOOR, WINDORE, WINDOWN, WINNOCK.)

So in Old Norse, vindauga meant wind-eye and through the advent of the Viking Age, this term for a hole in a building that permitted you to look in or out was adopted into the English language and over time, was softened to the term we use today. That is what I took from the complete entry (some 7 pages long....not reprinting that here--you're welcome).

Therefore, a window is a hole in a building useful to the eye (allows you to see in or out) and also allows the wind to move in or out of the building. See how much you learn here at Livlife's Emporium of Useless Knowledge?