window (n.)

A window is a hole in a wall with glass in it. The word is the Old Norse vindauga, from vindr, wind, and auga, eye: the wind’s eye.¹²

It came into English in the early thirteenth century and named what there was then⁠—an unglazed opening, often in a roof, that let in the weather along with the light. The wind is in the name because the wind came in.¹

Old English had its own words for it: eagþyrl, eye-hole, and eagduru, eye-door. Both were replaced, but everyone involved had seen the same thing in it⁠—an eye in a wall.¹

She opened the window.