beo

Forms

bēo f (nominative plural bēon) (weak n-stem)^[1] Northumbrian plural bia in the Durham Ritual gloss.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *bijā, from Proto-Germanic *bijǭ (“bee”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰey- (“bee”).^[1][3] Its Germanic cognates include Old High German bīa, Dutch bij and Old Norse bý, beside bini, with a suffix in ⟨n⟩, the source of German Biene.^[4][5][1]

Outside Germanic, Holthausen gives Old Irish bech (“bee”), Lithuanian bitė (“bee”) and Old Church Slavonic бьчела (bĭčela, “bee”).^[4][1] Köbler refers the word to the Indo-European word for the bee, Pokorny p. 116.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Many spellings of the noun are also forms of the verb bēon “to be”, and only the unambiguous ones date it.^[6] The earliest dated record is the Old English Boethius, in a manuscript of the mid-tenth century, which has swa swa seo beo sceal losian “just as the bee must perish”, and in its verse the wild bee that must perish if it stings anything in anger.^[7][5]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller stress the care given to bee-keeping: bee-keepers (bēoceorlas) had rights of their own and paid a tax on their bees, and the laws deal with bees that sting a man and with the stealing of bees.^[5][2] The medical texts use dead bees burnt to ash.^[2] A homiletic poem in the Vercelli Book compares deceitful men to bees, which carry honey in the mouth and poison in the tail.^[5][6] In the glosses it renders “apis”.^[3]

It lived on as Middle English be and survives in English bee.^[8][9]

Timeline

• s. x med. – seo beo “the bee” in the Old English Boethius.^[7][5]
• s. x med. – dead bees burnt to ash in Bald's Leechbook.^[10][2]
• s. x² – swa ða beon berað “as the bees carry” honey and a poisonous tail in Homiletic Fragment I, in the Vercelli Book.^[11][6]
• c. 970 – bia gihalda “protect the bees” in a blessing of the Durham Ritual gloss.^[12][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. a bee.^[5][13][3]

Word family

• bēoceorl
• bēobrēad
• bēogang
• bēoþēof
• bēowyrt
• feldbēo

Descendants

• Middle English be (→ English bee; Middle Scots be; Middle Scots bee)^[1]

Usage notes

The plural beon is spelled like the infinitive beon “to be”, and beo and bio like forms of the same verb, so the corpus record of the noun has to be read passage by passage.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 78
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. bío
4. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 24
5. ^ 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. 84
6. ^ a b c d e 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 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. 296
8. ^ 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)
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ 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. 412
11. ^ 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. 704
12. ^ 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. 204
13. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 43