clæppan

Forms

clæppan (weak class 1; third-person singular present clæpeþ, past singular clæpede, past plural clæpedon)^[1] Also written clappan;^[1][2] Bosworth and Toller list this form from the older dictionaries.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *klappijan, related to *klappōn (“to clap”).^[1] Wiktionary explains the West Germanic verb as made with *-jan to *klapp (“a hit, clap”), ultimately onomatopoeic.^[1] It has cognates in Old Frisian kleppa (“to sound, strike”) and Old High German biklepfen (“to overpower, oppress”).^[1][3][4] Köbler groups it with clappian under Proto-Germanic *klapōn, *klappōn (“to clap, chatter, strike”), with Old Norse klappa (“to strike, knock”), and compares Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European *gal- (“to call, shout”).^[5][6] Nerthus counts it as a primitive verb, not derived from another Old English word.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb occurs once in the corpus, in the medical tract Peri Didaxeon: among the signs of headache, Ærest þa ðunewenga clæppaþ “first the temples throb”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Toller's Supplement gives the sense to throb, of the pulse in the temples.^[8] Köbler glosses it to knock or strike, and Bosworth and Toller's clappan is to move or palpitate.^[5][2] The verb lived on as Middle English cleppen, now English clep.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. to throb, palpitate.^[8][2]
2. to knock, strike.^[5]

Descendants

• Middle English cleppen (→ English clep)^[1]

Related words

• clappian

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 158
3. ^ Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. kleppa
4. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. biklepfen
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. clæppan
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ Nerthus: An Online Lexical Database of Old English, Universidad de La Rioja, nerthusproject.com (derivational paradigms, via the Nerthus Project's open data), p. s.v. clæppan
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 127
9. ^ Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project