flæsc

Forms

flǣsċ n (strong i-stem; genitive singular flǣsċes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Germanic *flaiski (“meat, flesh”).^[1][2] Orel and Köbler set up the Proto-Germanic noun as *flaiskaz and *flaiska-.^[3][4] It is found in the other North and West Germanic languages: Old Norse flesk (“pork, bacon”), Old Frisian flāsk, Old Saxon flēsk and Old High German fleisc.^[3][4]

Its further origin is unclear.^[3][1] Orel compares the by-form flǣc (“flesh”) and takes the Proto-Germanic noun to have had a ⟨k⟩ before the suffix ⟨sk⟩.^[3] Wiktionary traces it, with doubts, to a root Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁ḱ- (“to tear, peel off”), and notes that it has been linked with Latin lāridum (“lard”) and *flikkiją (“piece of meat, flitch”).^[1] Watkins took it to have meant at first a piece of meat torn off, from *pleik- (“to tear”).^[5] Köbler asks, with a question mark, whether it belongs with a reconstructed *ploisko- (“side of bacon”).^[4]

In West Germanic the noun was an i-stem, and Orel still classes the Old English word so.^[2][3] Ringe and Taylor give its steps as ⟨flaiski⟩ > ⟨flāski⟩ > ⟨flǣsċi⟩ > ⟨flǣsċ⟩: the diphthong /ai/ became ā, the following /i/ fronted it to ǣ by i-umlaut, and /sk/ was palatalised before the ending was lost.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter, added in the middle of the ninth century: in Psalm 26 the enemies draw near ðæt hie eten flæsc min “that they may eat my flesh”, over the Latin “ut edant carnes”.^[7][8] Before the end of the century the Pastoral Care (890×897) uses it of the body as the seat of desire: ðonne we ures flæsces lustum ne libben “when we do not live by the lusts of our flesh”.^[9][8]

Semantic evolution

Toller's Supplement sorts the uses into the soft substance of the body, often set against skin and bone (ban of minum bane and flæsc of minum flæsce), meat as food, the visible surface of the body, and near kinship, including the union of husband and wife (beoð twegen on anum flæsce).^[10] In religious prose and verse it is the body as against the soul or mind, and the human nature that Christ took on: ðæt Word wæs geworden flæsc.^[11][4] Köbler adds the senses living being and all living creatures, and gives the Latin it renders in glosses, “caro” and “viscera”.^[4]

In the laws it is mostly the flesh of animals, and one clause deals with a man who gives his household meat during a fast.^[12][10] Its by-form flǣc is filed with it in Toller's Supplement.^[10]

The word lived on as Middle English flesh, now English flesh, in which the sense of near kindred survives only in the phrase flesh and blood.^[13][5]

Timeline

• s. ix med. – ðæt hie eten flæsc min “that they may eat my flesh” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[7][8]
• 890×897 – ures flæsces lustum “the lusts of our flesh” in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[9][8]
• s. x ex. – ban of minum banum, and flæsc of minum flæsce in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I.^[14][8]
• s. x/xi – the dative flæsce in the Beowulf manuscript.^[15][16]
• ?a1200 – Middle English flæsce “flesh”, the first quotation the Middle English Dictionary gives for the word.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. flesh, the soft substance of a body, as against skin and bone.^[10][4]
2. meat as food.^[10][12]
3. the body, as against the soul or mind; human nature, above all that taken on by Christ.^[11][4]
4. a living creature; all living creatures.^[4][17]
5. near kinship; the union of husband and wife.^[10]

Word family

• flǣsċhūs
• flǣsċmete
• flǣsċnes
• ġeflǣsċnes
• flǣsċsand

Descendants

• Middle English flesh (→ English flesh; Scots flesch)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 209
3. ^ a b c d e Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 104
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. flǣsc
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 287
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. 329
8. ^ 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
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. 499
10. ^ 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. 222
11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 290
12. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 72
13. ^ 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)
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. 407
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. 344
16. ^ 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. flǣsc
17. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 81