bodig

Forms

bodiġ n (strong a-stem; genitive singular bodiġes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *bodag (“body, trunk”).^[1] The only cognate is Old High German botah (“corpse, trunk, body”), continued in Middle High German botech.^[2][3][4] Köbler sets up a Proto-Germanic *budagaz (“grown”) and refers it to the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰeudʰ- (“to be awake, observe”), as Wiktionary does with *budagą;^[5][1] Holthausen calls the word of unknown origin, and Etymonline says that beyond the Old High German word it is unexplained.^[2][4]

The early glossary spellings ⟨bodeg⟩ and ⟨bodæi⟩ show the suffix *-æġ, which became -eġ and then -iġ.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a gloss in the Corpus Glossary (s. ix¹): Spina bodeg, the Latin word for the spine or backbone glossed by the Old English one.^[8][9] In the Pastoral Care (890×897) a hedgehog, before it is caught, shows its feet, its head ge eac eall ðæt bodig “and also the whole body”.^[10][9]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller list three uses: stature (in the Old English Bede Oswine was on bodige heah “tall in stature”), the trunk as against head and limbs, and the body as a whole.^[11][7] It glosses Latin “truncus”, “spina” and “statura”.^[5][11] Ælfric says of the idols that they have fet buton feþe, bodig buton life “feet without walking, a body without life”.^[12][9] In a medical recipe it is the main part of a plough, which Etymonline counts as the late Old English sense “main part of anything”.^[7][4]

It lived on as Middle English bodi, first in the Ormulum of about 1175, and is now English body;^[13][4] Etymonline notes that it died out in German while English kept it as a major word.^[13][4]

Timeline

• s. ix¹ – Spina bodeg in the Corpus Glossary (CCCC 144).^[8][9]
• 890×897 – eall ðæt bodig “the whole body” of a hedgehog in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[10][9]
• s. x ex. – bodig buton life “a body without life” in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I (Royal 7 C. xii).^[12][9]
• c. 1175 – Middle English bodiȝ in the Ormulum.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. stature, height of body.^[11][14][1]
2. the trunk of the body, the chest; the backbone.^[7][5]
3. the body; bodily presence.^[11][15]
4. the main part of something, as of a plough.^[7][15]

Descendants

• Middle English bodi (→ English body; English bodie; English bodice)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 28
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. bodig
6. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 6.52
7. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 100
8. ^ 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. 76
9. ^ a b c d e f 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 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. 499
11. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 114
12. ^ 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. 407
13. ^ a b c 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)
14. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 49
15. ^ 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. 544