Etymology

Formally derived from OE, which had the n-stem agent n. wilcuma ‘welcome guest’, and the interj. wilcume ‘welcome!’, with the first element wil- ‘desire, pleasure’ (cp. OHG willicomo, MHG and MLG willekome), but there are no reliable instances of these or related words in OE in which wil- has been replaced by the adv. wel ‘well’,  nor any in which the second element is clearly the str. pp. cumen. The analogous ON constructions as represented by OIcel velkominn ‘welcome (esp. in greeting)’ has been suggested as an influence on the ME form reinterpreted as compound of wel + cumen pp. (thus TGD, GDS, McGee 355, Nagano 1966: 67–8). OED also allows for influence from influence from OFr bien venu, bien veigniez (and Lat bene venisti, bene venias), and it is unclear, moreover, whether the ON word itself arose under LG (and thus Romance) influence.

PGmc Ancestor

*welō(n), *walō(n) + *kweman- 

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

velkominn ‘welcome (esp. in greeting)’
(ONP vel-kominn (adj.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Icel velkominn, Norw velkomen, velkommen, Dan velkommen, OSw vælkomin, Sw välkommen

OE Cognate

wel (adv.) 'well' + cumen (pp.) 'come'; cp. wylcumian ‘to welcome’

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CCC4a

Attestation

MED’s first citation in wel- is in a Lat context in ?c1190 Vita SGodrici in Sur.Soc.20 (LdMisc 413), and it is relatively widespread from the AB texts and a1225(c1200) Vices & V.(1) (Stw 34) onwards. 

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 252, 814, 835, etc.; Pe 399; Cl 813; WA 2302, 3211, 4933, etc.

Bibliography

MED welcom(e (adj.) , OED welcome (n.1, adj., and int.) , HTOED , HTOED , Dance welcum (adj.), de Vries vel; koma, Mag. vel; koma, Falk-Torp velkommen, Hellquist väl, Nielsen velkommen (II), Seebold kwem-a, Orel *welō(n) ~ *walō(n); *kwemanan, Kroonen *kweman- ~ *kuman-, AEW wel; cuman