breowan

Forms

brēowan (strong class 2; third-person singular present brīewþ, past singular brēaw, past plural bruwon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *breuwan, from Proto-Germanic *brewwaną (“to brew”).^[1][2] The Proto-Germanic strong verb is continued in Old Norse brugga, Old Frisian briūwa, Old Saxon breuwan and Old High German briuwan;^[2][3][4][5] Gothic has no record of it.^[2][3][4][5]

Kroonen derives it from the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil, brew”), which he also finds in the Hesychian Greek aorist Ancient Greek ἀπέφρυσεν (apéphrusen, “brewed”) and in Latin dēfrūtum (“must boiled down”).^[2] Köbler sets it under the same root in the sense "to move violently, to seethe", with Pokorny's root of boiling and surging behind it.^[4] Orel compares instead Lithuanian briáuti (“to push”) and Proto-Slavic *brujati (“to buzz, to flow”).^[3] Holthausen and Köbler link it with brēad and broþ.^[5][4]

The geminate /ww/ of the Proto-Germanic verb was vocalised in West Germanic, and the resulting sequence /euw/ gave Old English /eow/, so that *brewwan became brēowan; in North Germanic the geminate became /gg/ instead, which is the ⟨gg⟩ of the Old Norse verb.^[6] It is a strong verb of class 2.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears in its past participle in the Old English Orosius, in the account of the Ests: ne bið ðær nænig ealo gebrowen mid Estum, ac ðær bið medo genoh “no ale is brewed among the Ests, but there is mead enough”.^[9] Its manuscript, the Tollemache Orosius, is of the first half of the tenth century.^[10] The infinitive stem is first dated in Bald's Leechbook (s. x med.), where a salve is moistened with breowende wyrt “brewing wort”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

The record is small: one prose occurrence of the simplex in the dated corpus, beside the participle ġebrowen in the Orosius and Ælfric.^[12][9] The verb renders the Latin “cerevisiam coquere”, to make ale by boiling, and its objects are ale and other brewed drinks, which Ælfric sets against plain water in his homily on a man who drank nothing mixed or brewed.^[9] In Bald's Leechbook the present participle is used of wort still fermenting.^[13]

The verb lived on as Middle English brewen, now English brew.^[1][14]

Timeline

• s. x¹ or x²/⁴ – nænig ealo gebrowen “no ale brewed” among the Ests in the Old English Orosius.^[10][9]
• s. x med. – breowende wyrt “brewing wort” in a recipe of Bald's Leechbook.^[11][12]
• s. x ex. – ne gebrowenes “nor anything brewed” in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I.^[15][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. to brew ale or another drink by boiling and fermenting.^[9][4][16]

Word family

• ġebrēowan

Descendants

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

Related words

• brēad
• broþ

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 76
3. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 56
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. brēowan
5. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 34
6. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 3.17
7. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.50
8. ^ Brunner, Karl (1965), Altenglische Grammatik nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers, 3rd ed., Tübingen: Niemeyer, p. § 384
9. ^ 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. 124
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. 249
11. ^ 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. 412
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 106
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 50