dune

Forms

dūne^[1]

Etymology

It is probably a clipping from Old English adūne (“down, downward”), with the unstressed first syllable lost; compare ofdūne (“down”).^[1] Holthausen takes the longer adverb from the preposition of (“off, from”) with the dative of dūn (“hill”), and Köbler from the prefix ā- and the same noun.^[2][3] The noun goes back to Proto-Germanic *dūnǭ.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Toller's Supplement quotes Dune astag “went down” from the Lindisfarne gloss of Luke 4:31, where it renders the Latin “descendit”.^[4] The Old English gloss of that manuscript was added in the third quarter of the tenth century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adverb means “down, downwards” and is a rare by-form of adūne and ofdūne: Sweet simply sets it equal to the second.^[6][1] Toller's Supplement adds, as later evidence, brohton dune “brought down” from the annal for 1070 in the Chronicle.^[4]

Timeline

• s. x³/⁴ – Dune astag for Latin “descendit” in the Lindisfarne Gospels gloss (Luke 4:31).^[5][4]

Meanings

Adverb

1. down, downwards.^[4][6][1]

Related words

• adūne
• ofdūne
• dūn

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 2
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. ādūne
4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 160
5. ^ 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. 291
6. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 67