Is 'bandy' English, or is it actually French?

'Bandy' is a word borrowed from French 'bander'. The word entered the English language some time around 1577.

bandy [verb] [1577]

• to bat (as a tennis ball) to and fro
• to toss from side to side or pass about from one to another often in a careless or inappropriate manner
• exchange
• to exchange (words) argumentatively

See 'bandy' on the Loan Words Map

See more loan words from French.

note: From the Middle French bander (to strike back and forth) and originally referred to a seventeenth-century Irish game similar to field hockey.
Etymology: origin unknown

See more loan words from 1500s.