east

Forms

ēast m (strong a-stem; genitive singular ēastes, nominative plural ēastas)^[1] Adjective: comparative ēastra, ēastera, superlative ēastemest.^[2][3] A weak feminine noun ēaste “the east” is also found.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *austr.^[1] Kroonen reconstructs the adverb Proto-Germanic *austera- (“east, eastwards”), continued in Old Norse austr, Old Frisian āster, Old Saxon ōstar and Old High German ōstar.^[5] Holthausen compares the same words and Old Saxon ōst.^[6]

Kroonen explains the adverb as made with the contrastive suffix Proto-Indo-European *-teros to the Indo-European word for dawn, as in Latin auster (“south wind, south”) and Avestan ušastara- (“eastern”); the same suffix forms the words for north, south and west.^[5] The dawn word itself is from the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂ews- (“to shine”).^[7][8] The same root is behind ēastre (“Easter”).^[5]

Proto-Germanic /au/ appears as Old English ⟨ēa⟩.^[9] Like the other points of the compass, the adjective forms its comparative and superlative without i-umlaut.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the bounds of King Coenwulf of Mercia's charter of 811 for Archbishop Wulfred, for land in Kent: East on stræte “east to the street”.^[11][12] The first of its manuscripts is a single sheet of the early ninth century, held to be the original.^[11][12] The Corpus Glossary of the early ninth century has Boreus east norðwind, the north-east wind.^[13][12]

Semantic evolution

Toller's Supplement takes the word as an adverb first, marking the direction of movement, measurement or looking, and relative position, "in the east"; the noun "the east" and the positive of the adjective are uncertain, since the adjective is mostly found in compounds and in the compared forms ēastra and ēastemest.^[2][3] Compounds name peoples and regions: Ēastengle “East Angles”, Ēastseaxe “East Saxons”, Ēastfrancan “East Franks”.^[14] Like the other compass words it is frequent in charter bounds and place-names.^[15] It renders Latin oriens.^[7]

The word lived on as Middle English est, recorded from the early thirteenth century as the cardinal point, now English east.^[16][8]

Timeline

• 811 – East on stræte in the bounds of Coenwulf's charter for Wulfred, in an original single sheet.^[11][12]
• s. ix¹ – east norðwind glossing boreus in the Corpus Glossary.^[13][12]
• s. x¹ – sio easte-meste þeod, the easternmost people, in the Old English Orosius.^[17][2]
• c. 1225 – Middle English est in Sawles Warde.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. the east.^[14][1]

Adjective

1. eastern, easterly; chiefly in compounds and in the comparative and superlative.^[2][3]

Adverb

1. eastwards, to the east.^[2]
2. in the east.^[2][3]

Word family

• ēastan
• ēastdǣl
• ēastende
• Ēastengle
• Ēastseaxe
• ēastrīce
• ēastland
• ēastweard
• ēastrihte

Descendants

• Middle English est (→ English east; Scots eist; Scots aist)^[1]

Related words

• ēastre

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 173
3. ^ a b c d e Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 70
4. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 174
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 43
6. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 86
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. ēast
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Campbell, A. (1959), Old English Grammar, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. § 135
10. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 4.74
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 168
12. ^ a b c d e 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 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. 76
14. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 235
15. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 47
16. ^ 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)
17. ^ 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. 249