Etymologically
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eall

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Pronunciation

  • /æ͜ɑll/, [æ͜ɑɫ][1]

Forms

eall (strong)[1]

  • Anglian and early all, alle (Vespasian Psalter gloss, Kentish charters).[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *all, from Proto-Germanic *allaz (“all, whole”).[1][4] Its cognates are Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌻𐍃 (alls), Old Norse allr, Old Frisian al, Old Saxon al and Old High German al.[4][5][6]

Kroonen explains the ⟨ll⟩ from an older ⟨ln⟩, as in the word for “full”, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-nó-, comparing Oscan allo (“whole”), Old Irish uile (“all”) and Lithuanian aliai (“completely”).[4] Orel likewise sets up *alnaz beside the Oscan and Old Irish words.[5] The form without the suffix survives as a first element in compounds: Old English æl-, Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌰- (ala-), Old High German ala-.[4][7] Wiktionary calls the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- only a possibility, and Etymonline finds no certain connection outside Germanic.[1][8]

Before ⟨ll⟩ the vowel was broken to ⟨ea⟩ in late West Saxon and Kentish, while early West Saxon also has forms with ⟨a⟩.[9] Clark Hall calls “all” strictly Anglian, though it also occurs in the Orosius and the Pastoral Care.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in the grant of Oswulf and Beornthryth to Christ Church, Canterbury (S 1188, 805×810), whose ninth-century single sheet Parsons held to be contemporary and Crick dated to the 840s: Ond ðas forecuedenan suesenda all agefe mon ðem reogolwarde “and all these aforesaid provisions are to be handed to the keeper of the rule”.[10][3] In the Vespasian Psalter gloss (s. ix med.) alle ða ðe doemað eordan renders “omnes qui iudicatis terram”, “all you who judge the earth”.[11][3]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it means “all, every, whole” and renders Latin “omnis”, “totus”, “cunctus” and “universus”; it has no weak form.[12][13][14] Used alone it is a pronoun, “everything”, and in the plural “all men”.[14][15] As an adverb it means “fully, entirely, quite”, as in The Wanderer, Wyn eal gedreas “joy has wholly perished”.[16][1] Its cases make set phrases: ealne weg, contracted ealneġ, “always”, mid ealle “altogether”, ofer eall “everywhere” and ealra swīþost “most of all”.[14][15]

The word is among the commonest in the language, with 5,781 occurrences in 913 texts of the DOE Corpus.[3] It lived on as Middle English al, plural alle, now English all; old genitives survive in Middle English phrases such as alles kinnes and alder-mest.[17]

Timeline

  • 805×810 – suesenda all “all the provisions” in the grant of Oswulf and Beornthryth.[10][3]
  • s. ix med. – alle ða ðe doemað eordan in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.[11][3]
  • 890×897 – cræft ealra cræfta “the art of all arts” in the Pastoral Care.[18][3]
  • 10th century – the adverb in The Wanderer: Wyn eal gedreas.[1]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. all, every.[12][14]
  2. whole, entire.[19][13]

Pronoun

  1. everything; in the plural, everyone.[14][15]

Adverb

  1. fully, wholly, entirely, quite.[14][16]

Word family

  • ealneġ
  • eallunga
  • nealles
  • eallmihtiġ
  • eallhāliġ
  • ealswā

Descendants

  • Middle English all (→ English all; English a'; Scots a')[1]
  • æl-

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. 17
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
  4. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 23
  5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 16
  6. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 7
  7. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
  8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.20
  10. ^ a b 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 1188
  11. ^ 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. 329
  12. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 226
  13. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. eall
  14. ^ a b c d e f Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 94
  15. ^ a b c Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 69
  16. ^ 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. eall
  17. ^ 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)
  18. ^ 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. 499
  19. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 230