dagian

Forms

dagian (weak class 2; third-person singular present dagaþ, past singular dagode, past plural dagodon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *dagēn, from Proto-Germanic *dagāną (“to dawn, become day”), a verb made from *dagaz (“day”).^[1][2] It corresponds to Old Norse daga (“to dawn”), Middle Low German dagen and Old High German tagēn.^[2][3][4] The base is dæġ (“day”).^[5][6]

Ringe and Taylor explain the Old English class: Proto-West Germanic had a verb of the third weak class, which Old High German keeps, and Old English moved it into the second class as ⟨*dægōjan⟩, the source of the Old English verb.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in the Old English Bede in Tanner 10, written early in the tenth century or in the first half of the eleventh: & sona on morne, swa hit dagian ongan, þæt he for on þone here “and at once in the morning, as it began to dawn, he went against the army”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The verb is impersonal, “it dawns, it becomes day”, and is used mostly of the break of day, as in the phrase þa hit dagian wolde “when day was about to break”.^[10][11] Bosworth and Toller cite it also in the sense of being day: the Old English version of Bede's De natura rerum says of the summer nights swylce hit ealle niht dagie “as though it were day all night”.^[10] In verse it occurs once, in The Fight at Finnsburh, where Klaeber reads dagað in the third line.^[12][9]

It lived on as Middle English dawen, the obsolete or Scots verb daw.^[1][12]

Timeline

• s. x in. or xi¹ – swa hit dagian ongan “as it began to dawn” in the Old English Bede (Tanner 10).^[8][9]
• s. xi in. – oðþæt hit wolde dagian “until day was about to break” in Ælfric's Lives of Saints (Swithun).^[13][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (impersonal) to dawn, to become day.^[10][14][5]
2. to be day.^[10][14]

Descendants

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

Related words

• dæġ

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 66
3. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 70
4. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. daga
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. dagian
6. ^ 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. dagian
7. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 191
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. 531
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 195
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 146
12. ^ a b 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. dagian
13. ^ 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. 282
14. ^ 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. 82