see æ. As a word, it can represent Old English æ "law," especially law of nature or God's law; hence "legal custom, marriage," from Proto-Germanic *aiwi- (cognate with Old High German ewa, Old Saxon eo), according to Buck probably literally "way, manner, custom," from PIE *ei- "to go," but Boutkan (2005) finds it to be of no certain Indo-European etymology.
