bring: [OE] Bring is an ancient verb, which has come down to us, with great semantic stability, from its Indo-European source *bhrengk-. It is widespread in the Germanic languages, apart from the Scandinavian ones (German has bringen, Dutch brengen), but outside Germanic it seems to have flourished only in the Celtic languages (Welsh has hebrwng ‘accompany’).
Old English bringan "to bring, bring forth, produce, present, offer" (past tense brohte, past participle broht), from Proto-Germanic *brengan (cognates: Old Frisian brenga, Middle Dutch brenghen, Old High German bringan, Gothic briggan); no exact cognates outside Germanic, but it appears to be from PIE root *bhrengk-, compound based on root *bher- (1) "to carry" (source also of Latin ferre; see infer).
The tendency to conjugate this as a strong verb on the model of sing, drink, etc., is ancient: Old English also had a rare strong past participle form, brungen, corresponding to modern colloquial brung. To bring down the house figuratively (1754) is to elicit applause so thunderous it collapses the roof.
