fisc

Forms

fisċ m (nominative plural fiscas) (strong a-stem)^[1]

• Also fix, plural fixas.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *fisk, from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (“fish”).^[1] The noun is common Germanic: Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (fisks), Old Norse fiskr, Old Frisian fisk, Old Saxon fisk and Old High German fisk.^[4][3] Orel relates it to Latin piscis (“fish”) and Old Irish íasc (“fish”), from Proto-Indo-European *peiskos.^[4] Köbler reconstructs the root as *peisk- or *pisk-.^[3] Etymonline notes that Boutkan, on phonetic grounds, takes it for a substrate word of north-western Europe.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is the Corpus Glossary, written in the first half of the ninth century, which glosses Latin “piscis” with fisc.^[6][7] A single-sheet charter of Ealdorman Oswulf to Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 805×810, lists fisces with butter and eggs among the food to be given on a fast day;^[8][7] Parsons held the sheet contemporary, while Crick dates its drafting and writing to the 840s.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

Old English uses the word for a single fish, for fish taken together, as in a charter giving the monks a third of the catch, and for fish as food, set against meat in Lent.^[2][9][10] In the glosses it renders Latin “piscis”.^[3] The poets call the sea fisces bæþ “the fish's bath” in Andreas, and Maxims II says that the fish must breed its kind in water.^[2] Field names in the charters include fisc mere and fisc pol.^[11] Beside fiscas the plural is often written fixas.^[2][12]

The word lived on as Middle English fisch, now English fish.^[1][5]

Timeline

• s. ix¹ – fisc glossing Latin “piscis” in the Corpus Glossary.^[6][7]
• s. ix – fisces among the food renders of a Canterbury charter dated 805×810, on a single sheet.^[8][7]
• s. ix med. – fuglas heofenes & fiscas saes “the birds of heaven and the fish of the sea” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[13][7]
• s. x² – ofer fisces bæþ “over the fish's bath”, the sea, in Andreas in the Vercelli Book.^[14][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. a fish.^[2][12][3]
2. fish collectively, a catch.^[9]
3. fish as food, as opposed to meat.^[9][10]

Word family

• fiscere
• fiscian
• fenfisc
• sċilfisc
• mēcefisc
• gafolfisc
• metefisc

Descendants

• Middle English fisch (→ English fish; Scots fish; Scots fysch)^[1]

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. 289
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. fisc
4. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 103
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e f Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
8. ^ 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 1188
9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 221
10. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 764
11. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 51
12. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 81
13. ^ 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
14. ^ 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