cu

Forms

cū f (nominative plural cȳ)^[1] Genitive singular cū, cūe or cūs; dative singular cȳ; genitive plural cūa or cūna; dative plural cūm.^[2][3] The laws of Ine have the genitive cuus.^[4] The Vespasian Psalter gloss has the accusative plural cȳe and the Rushworth gloss the genitive plural cȳna.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *kō (“cow”), from Proto-Germanic *kōz.^[1][6] The other Germanic languages have Old Norse kýr, Old Frisian kū, Old Saxon kō and Old High German kuo.^[6][7][8] Kroonen explains it as a root noun that continues the common Indo-European word for the cow, the u-stem Proto-Indo-European *gʷéh₃-u-s, oblique *gʷh₃-u-, itself made to the root Proto-Indo-European *gʷeh₃- (“to graze”).^[6] The same word is Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs, “ox, cow”), Latin bōs and Old Irish bó.^[7][9]

Germanic had two forms of the stem, *kō- and *kū-, from one paradigm with a nominative in ō and an oblique stem in ū;^[6] Old English and Old Frisian have the ū of the oblique cases, Old Saxon and Old High German the ō of the nominative.^[6] In Old English it is a feminine root noun.^[10] Its endings should all have been lost except in the dative plural ⟨cūm⟩, while the dative singular and nominative plural ⟨cȳ⟩ keep i-umlaut.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the will of Abba, a Kentish reeve, dated 833×839 and surviving in a contemporary single sheet.^[11] If Abba's wife will not keep the land, it is to pass on, and he is to be given IIII oxan & II cy & L scepa & ænne horn “four oxen and two cows and fifty sheep and a horn” with it.^[12][11]

Semantic evolution

Old English used the word only for the cow; a young cow or heifer was an iung cū.^[2] It renders Latin “vacca” and “bucula” in the glossaries, and is named in wills and in the laws, where the laws of Ine have clauses on a cow's horn and a cow's eye.^[2][4] In the medical texts cow's milk and dung are ingredients.^[2][12]

The word lived on as Middle English cou, English cow; in English it came to be used of the females of other large animals from the late fourteenth century.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 833×839 – II cy “two cows” in the will of Abba.^[11]
• s. x med. – cu meoluc “cow's milk” in Bald's Leechbook.^[15][12]
• s. x/xi – the Old English Martyrology, of a saint who ða cealfas to cuum lædde “led the calves to the cows”.^[16][12]
• a1300 – Lhouþ after calue cu “the cow lows after the calf” in Sumer is icumen in.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. a cow.^[2][8]

Word family

• metecū

Descendants

• Middle English cow (→ English cow; Scots coo; Scots coe)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 172
3. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 59
4. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 42
5. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 3.127
6. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 299
7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 219
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. cū
9. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 62
10. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 2.111
11. ^ a b c 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 1482
12. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
13. ^ 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)
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. 412
16. ^ 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. 281