heathyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
heath: [OE] Heath goes back to Indo-European *kait-, denoting ‘open, unploughed country’. Its Germanic descendant *khaithiz produced German and Dutch heide and English heath. One of the commonest plants of such habitats is the heather, and this was accordingly named in prehistoric Germanic *khaithjō, a derivative of the same base as produced *khaithiz, which in modern English has become heath ‘plant of the heather family’. (The word heather [14] itself, incidentally, does not appear to be related. It comes from a Scottish or Northern Middle English hadder or hathir, and its modern English form is due to association with heath.)
heath (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English hæð "untilled land, tract of wasteland," especially flat, shrubby, desolate land;" earlier "heather, plants and shrubs found on heaths," influenced by cognate Old Norse heiðr "heath, moor," both from Proto-Germanic *haithiz (cognates: Old Saxon hetha, Old High German heida "heather," Dutch heide "heath," Gothic haiþi "field"), from PIE *kaito "forest, uncultivated land" (cognates: Old Irish ciad, Welsh coed, Breton coet "wood, forest").