docga

Forms

docga m (weak; genitive singular docgan, nominative plural docgan)^[1]

Etymology

The origin of the word is unknown.^[2][1][3] Holthausen compares a personal name Dycga,^[2] and Köbler asks whether it belongs with dugan (“to be good, avail”).^[4] Wiktionary lists three guesses, none with much support: a diminutive in -ga of dox (“dark, dusky”), as frocga stands beside frox; a clipped form of a *hundocga made from hund (“dog”) after words of that kind; or a diminutive of *docce (“stump, doll”).^[1]

Hogg places it in a small set of Old English words with a geminate ⟨cg⟩ /gg/ that have doubtful etymologies and are mostly pet names for animals, like frogga (“frog”), *picga (“pig”), *stagga (“stag”), sugga and wicga, and suggests that the double consonant had an expressive force there.^[5] He counts such forms among the geminates of expressive origin, used in pet names.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word occurs once in Old English texts: the genitive plural docgena glosses Latin “canum” “of dogs” in the glosses to Prudentius.^[7][8][9] The Middle English Dictionary also counts only this one instance, and compares the place names Doggene-berwe and -ford.^[10] The forms docga and dogga appear in the vocabulary of the charter bounds.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The descendant Middle English dogge is at first mostly a word of contempt, said of a cur or of a worthless person, and even of the Devil: in Ancrene Wisse the fiend's teeth are as venomous as a mad dog's.^[10] The English word dog later drove out hund as the ordinary word for the animal, by the sixteenth century.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – wed dogge “mad dog” in Ancrene Wisse.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. a dog.^[7][2][4]

Descendants

• Middle English dogge (→ English dog; Scots dug)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 74
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. docga
5. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 2.78.3
6. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 4.2
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 205
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 153
9. ^ 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 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)
11. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk