loft [OE] In Old English loft meant ‘air, sky’ as well as what was up in the air, with the sense an upper room developing in Middle English. It comes from Old Norse, and shares a Germanic root with lift [OE]. Sky [ME] was also a borrowing from Scandinavian and originally meant ‘cloud’. The word was applied to a shade of blue in the mid 17th century; the phrase out of a clear blue sky, for something as unexpected as rain or thunder out of such a sky, made its appearance in the mid 19th century; the sky’s the limit dates from the 1920s. When Anglo-Saxons wanted to talk about the sky they could also use the word wolcen, welkin in modern English, but now only used in the expression to make the welkin ring.