feld

Forms

feld m (genitive singular felda, nominative plural felda)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *felþu, from Proto-Germanic *felþuz (“field, plain”).^[1] The same noun is found in Old Frisian feld, Old Saxon feld and Old High German feld;^[2][3]

Orel explains the Proto-Germanic noun as a remodelled Proto-Indo-European *peltu- beside an older zero grade *pl̥tu-, the stem of Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “flat, broad”).^[2] Köbler sets up a neuter *felþą and the root Proto-Indo-European *pelə- “broad, flat; to spread”.^[4] Wiktionary notes that Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *pelth₂-, whereas the usual form of the “flat” root is *pleth₂-.^[1] Holthausen connects it with folde “earth”, flōr “floor” and folm “palm of the hand”, and with Latin palam (“openly”).^[3]

It was a masculine u-stem: genitive and dative singular ⟨felda⟩.^[1][5] Like the other heavy-stemmed masculine u-stems it went over to the a-declension, regularly so in Ælfric, while the charters keep the old dative ⟨felda⟩.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded as a place-name in a charter of 836, by which King Wiglaf of Mercia gave privileges to the minster at Hanbury, among them ten hides “aet felda bi weoduman”; the single sheet is held to be contemporary.^[6] As a common noun it appears in the Corpus Glossary of the first half of the ninth century, where feld glosses Latin “scamma” and feltha glosses “saltuum”.^[7][8] In the gloss of the Vespasian Psalter, of the mid-ninth century, netenu feldes translates “pecora campi”, “the beasts of the field” (Psalm 8).^[9][8]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is open country, land free of wood, a plain as against hills or forest; the laws pair it with wood in on wuda and on felda.^[10][11] It also names pasture and tilled land, and in verse and prose the field of battle.^[12][13][14] In Latin glosses it renders “campus”, “saltus” and “scamma”.^[4] As the second part of place-names it occurs from the earliest charters, but Middendorff counts only about forty such names, far fewer than the English names in -field.^[15]

It continued as Middle English feld, first in the Peterborough Chronicle, for flat open country, and as English field.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 836 – the place Felda in a charter of King Wiglaf, in a contemporary single sheet.^[6]
• s. ix¹ – feld for Latin “scamma” in the Corpus Glossary.^[7][8]
• s. ix med. – netenu feldes “beasts of the field” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[9][8]
• 890×897 – the field of battle in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[18][13]
• s. x² – se æðela feld “the noble plain” in The Phoenix, Exeter Book.^[19][12]
• a1121 – Middle English feld in the Peterborough Chronicle.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. open country, a plain; land free of wood.^[12][10][4]
2. pasture or cultivated land, a field.^[12][13]
3. a battlefield.^[13][14][4]

Word family

• ōretfeld
• mylenfeld
• hǣþfeld
• feldwesten

Descendants

• Middle English feld (→ English field; Middle Scots feild; Middle Scots feld)^[1]

Related words

• folde
• flōr
• folm

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 97
3. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 100
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. feld
5. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 3.119
6. ^ 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 190
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 209
11. ^ Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 68
12. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 274
13. ^ a b c d Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 112
14. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 77
15. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 49
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. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. ^ 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. 223