list [OE] The Germanic root that gave Old English liste ‘an edge or border’ was borrowed into French as liste. These two forms have influenced the form and meaning of the various forms of list we have today. The sense ‘items written down’ is late 16th century and borrowed from French. The sense of an edge or boundary gives us the lists in which knights fought, coming from the earlier sense of an area bordered by a palisade, but the form is again influenced by the French word. This is the origin of to enter the lists [L16th] ‘to issue or accept a challenge’. There was another list, now obsolete, meaning ‘desire, wish’ which still survives in listless [ME] literally ‘without desire’. List [E17th] meaning to lean to one side, particularly of a ship, is of unknown origin.