bece

Forms

bēċe f (weak n-stem; genitive singular bēċan, nominative plural bēċan)^[1] Early spellings boecae (Épinal Glossary), boeccae (Erfurt Glossary) and boece (Corpus Glossary).^[2] Erfurt also has unrounded beccae.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *bōkijā,^[1] a derivative of the word for the beech that appears as bōc.^[4][5] Wiktionary explains the Proto-West Germanic form as Proto-Germanic *bōkō with the suffix *-jā.^[1] The simple noun has the cognates Old Saxon bōka and Old High German buohha, beside Gothic 𐌱𐍉𐌺𐌰 (bōka) “letter”.^[6] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech”), the source also of Latin fāgus (“beech”) and Ancient Greek φηγός (phēgós, “oak”).^[1][5]

The ō of the base was fronted by i-umlaut to a rounded long vowel, written ⟨oe⟩ in the oldest glosses, which later became ē; the Erfurt Glossary already has one unrounded spelling.^[3][2] The ⟨c⟩ was palatalised before the following front vowel.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the Épinal Glossary, of s. vii ex. or vii/viii, where boecae glosses Latin “aesculus”; the Erfurt Glossary has boeccae for the same word and boecce for “fagus”.^[7][2][8][9] The DOEPN points out that “aesculus” really named a Mediterranean oak, so the gloss rests on a misreading of the Latin.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word names the beech, the tree whose mast fed the swine, and it glosses both Latin “fagus” and “aesculus”.^[11][4][10] Outside the glossaries it is found mostly in charter bounds, where a beech marked a boundary: Toller adds tō þaere mearcbēcean and on þā ealdan mearcebēcan from the charters.^[12][13] LangScape notes that the forms are sometimes hard to tell apart from those of the word for a brook.^[13]

The word lived on as Middle English beche, recorded from about 1300 in The Owl and the Nightingale, now English beech.^[14][15]

Timeline

• s. vii ex. or vii/viii – boecae for “aesculus” in the Épinal Glossary.^[7][2]
• s. ix¹ – boece for “aesculus” in the Corpus Glossary.^[16][9]
• s. xii med. – to read lefan becan in a later copy of the bounds of a charter of 967.^[17][9]
• a1300 – Middle English beche in The Owl and the Nightingale.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. the beech tree (Fagus).^[11][10][4]
2. (charters) a beech marking a boundary.^[12]

Word family

• bēcen
• mearcbēċe

Descendants

• Middle English beche (→ English beech; Scots beech)^[1]

Related words

• bōc

Usage notes

Another word bece, with a short vowel, means “brook” and belongs with bæċe.^[12][18][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Pheifer, J. D. (1974), Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 93
3. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.77
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. bœ̄ce
5. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 28
6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 51
7. ^ 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. 610
8. ^ Pheifer, J. D. (1974), Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 112
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c Bierbaumer, Peter; Sauer, Hans; Klug, Helmut W.; Krischke, Ulrike, eds. (2007–), Dictionary of Old English Plant Names, Graz, oldenglish-plantnames.org, p. s.v. bēce
11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 74
12. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 67
13. ^ a b LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
14. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
15. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
16. ^ 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. 76
17. ^ The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 754
18. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 40
19. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 18