brand

Forms

brand m (strong a-stem; genitive singular brandes, nominative plural brandas)^[1] Also brond, the spelling of the Corpus Glossary, the Exeter Book and the Beowulf manuscript.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *brand, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz (“fire, firebrand, sword”).^[1][4] The Germanic noun is made from the verb *brinnaną (“to burn”), the source of beornan.^[1][5][6] Its relatives are Old Norse brandr (“firebrand, firewood”), Old Frisian brand, Old Saxon brand and Old High German brant.^[7][5][6] Kroonen explains the verb as an n-present to the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil, brew”);^[8] Orel calls the verb of unknown origin.^[9]

For the sense “sword” Holthausen gives an article of its own, compares the Old High German word and the Old Norse one, which also means “stick, post”, and calls its origin unknown.^[5] De Vries, who sets the Old Norse “board; sword blade” apart from “firebrand”, thinks the Old English sword sense may have been taken from Old Norse, and also allows that a sword could be named as the fiery one.^[7] Köbler and Klaeber keep both senses under one etymon.^[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is among the oldest English glosses: the Épinal Glossary (s. vii ex. or vii/viii) has titio brand, “firebrand”.^[10][3] Ælfric's Glossary still glosses Latin “titio vel torris” with it.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is a burning piece of wood, a firebrand or torch: in Daniel the king's men bæron brandas on bryne blacan fyres “carried brands into the burning of the bright fire”, and the Lindisfarne gloss renders Latin “facibus” with brondum.^[11][12] From it comes the sense fire, burning, flame, mostly in poetry: in Beowulf the dragon has wrapped the land's people bæle and bronde “in fire and burning”.^[11][2] Toller adds, with a query, a sense “blight” of plants, comparing Old High German wintbrant (“rust”).^[12]

The sense “sword” is poetic in the dictionaries (Beowulf 1454), but Klaeber notes three prose instances.^[2][13] One of them is the will of the ætheling Æthelstan of 1014.^[14][3]

Its continuation Middle English brand, brond meant burning fuel, fire, a firebrand or torch, and also a sword; it survives as English brand.^[15][16]

Timeline

• s. vii ex. or vii/viii – titio brand in the Épinal Glossary.^[10][3]
• s. ix¹ – brond in the Corpus Glossary (CCCC 144).^[17][3]
• s. x² – brand and brade ligas, the fire of hell, in Genesis A, and bæron brandas in Daniel, both in the Junius manuscript.^[18][3]
• s. x² – brond þeceþ hus “fire covers the house” in The Phoenix in the Exeter Book.^[19][11]
• s. x/xi – brond “sword” (line 1454) and “fire” in the Beowulf manuscript.^[20][2]
• 1014 – anes brandes, a sword bequeathed beside two other swords, in the will of the ætheling Æthelstan, kept in an early eleventh-century single sheet.^[14][3]
• a1225 – Middle English twa brondes in the Lambeth Homilies.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. a firebrand, a burning piece of wood; a torch.^[11][12][13]
2. fire, burning, flame.^[11][2][6]
3. (doubtful) blight of plants.^[12][1]
4. (poetic) a sword.^[2][13][21]

Descendants

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

Related words

• beornan

Usage notes

In Beowulf 1020 the manuscript reads brand Healfdenes;^[11][22][2] Bosworth and Toller took brand there for a copyist's error for bearn “son”, while Clark Hall's supplement reads it as “the sword of Healfdene”, a name for Hrothgar.^[11][22][2] The personal name Brand, Brond in the West Saxon genealogies of the Chronicle has the same spelling.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. brond
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
4. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
5. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 32
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. brand
7. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 53
8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 77
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 56
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. 610
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 120
12. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 104
13. ^ a b c Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 55
14. ^ a b 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 1503
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ 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
18. ^ 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. 513
19. ^ 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. 223
20. ^ 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. 344
21. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 50
22. ^ 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. 24