amasian

Forms

āmasian (weak class 2; third-person singular present āmasaþ, past singular āmasode, past plural āmasodon)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Old English ā- + *masian (“to confound”), a verb not recorded without the prefix.^[1][2] Wiktionary traces *masian to Proto-West Germanic *masōn, from Proto-Germanic *masōną (“to labour, be confused”).^[1] Holthausen compares Norwegian and Swedish dialect words meaning to fall asleep and to be slow, and an ablaut form meaning sleepy.^[3] Etymonline takes the base to be the word that became English maze, with ā- as an intensive prefix.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in Judgement Day II, in a manuscript of the early eleventh century (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201), describing the terror before the Judgement seat: stent hergea mæst heortleas and earh, amasod and amarod, mihtleas, afæred “the greatest of hosts will stand without heart and cowardly, confounded and bewildered, powerless, afraid”.^[5][6] The line renders Bede's Latin “pavor percutiet stupidis cunctorum corda querelis”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The verb is rare: Bosworth and Toller give it the senses to amaze, stupefy and confound, and quote only the poem, the same words in a homily printed among Wulfstan's, and a canticle gloss in which þu amasost þeoda renders Latin “obstupefacies gentes”.^[7][8] The canticle gloss is in the Lambeth Psalter, of the first half of the eleventh century.^[9][6] It is paired in the poem with āmarian, a verb of similar sense.^[7][1]

The participle lived on as Middle English amased “stunned, bewildered”, from which English amaze was made by back-formation in the 1580s.^[4]

Timeline

• s. xi in. – amasod and amarod in Judgement Day II (CCCC 201).^[5][6]
• s. xi¹ – þu amasost þeoda for Latin “obstupefacies gentes” in the Lambeth Psalter's canticle gloss.^[9][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. to amaze, stupefy.^[7][2]
2. to confound, confuse.^[7][8]

Descendants

• Middle English amased (→ English amaze)^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. āmasian
3. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 215
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 104
6. ^ a b c Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
7. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 35
8. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 17
9. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 434