ecg

Forms

eċġ f (strong ō-stem; genitive singular eċġe, nominative plural eċġa)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *aggju, from Proto-Germanic *agjō (“edge, blade”).^[1][2] The same noun is Old Norse egg, Old Frisian edze, Old Saxon eggia and Old High German ecka.^[3][4] Kroonen explains it as a feminine ieh₂-stem made to the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂ek- (“sharp”).^[3] Ringe and Taylor compare Latin aciēs (“edge”).^[2]

Ringe and Taylor trace the Old English form step by step: West Germanic doubling of /g/ before /j/, fronting of /a/, then i-umlaut and palatalisation of the double consonant.^[2] It is a strong feminine ō-stem.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Corpus Glossary, of the first half of the ninth century, where ecg uel scearpnis glosses Latin “acies” in its sense “the sharpness of iron”.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The word is mostly poetic: in prose it occurs mainly in the phrase “by the edge of the sword”, while Beowulf and the other poems use it for the blade and, by metonymy, the sword itself.^[7][8] The charter bounds use it for the edge or brow of high ground.^[9][10][11]

It continued as Middle English egge, the cutting edge of a tool, recorded in the Ormulum, and English edge.^[12][13] English egg (on) is probably an early loan of the related Old Norse verb eggja beside the native noun.^[14]

Timeline

• s. ix¹ – ecg uel scearpnis for Latin “acies” in the Corpus Glossary.^[5][6]
• s. x² – wæpna ecgum “with the edges of weapons” in Andreas, Vercelli Book.^[15][6]
• s. x/xi – hyne ecg fornam “the sword had carried him off” in Beowulf.^[16][7]
• c1175 – Middle English egge in the Ormulum.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. the edge or point of a blade.^[7][17][18]
2. (poetic) a sword or other edged weapon.^[8][19]
3. the edge or brow of high ground, in charter bounds.^[9][10]

Word family

• brūnecg
• heardecg
• stȳlecg
• sūþecg

Descendants

• Middle English egge (→ English edge; Scots ege; Scots egge)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 285
3. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 4
4. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 94
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. 76
6. ^ a b c Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 238
8. ^ 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. ecg
9. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 177
10. ^ a b Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 43
11. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ Durkin, Philip (2014), Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 195
15. ^ 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. 704
16. ^ 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. 344
17. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 99
18. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. ecg
19. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 71