gor

Forms

gor n (strong a-stem; genitive singular gores, nominative plural -)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *gor, from Proto-Germanic *gurą (“half-digested stomach contents; dung”).^[1][2] Its relatives are Old High German gor (“dung, dirt”), Old Norse gor (“half-digested food”), Dutch goor (“foul, dirty”) and Old Frisian jere (“liquid manure”).^[3][2] Etymonline calls the Germanic word of uncertain origin.^[4]

Holthausen compares Old Irish gur (“pus”) and Welsh gôr (“pus”), and Köbler places it under Pokorny's root Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“warm, hot”).^[3][2] Wiktionary points out that the Old Irish word suggests that root, but that the correspondence of the Germanic and Indo-European initial consonants is still debated.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is first recorded in Riddle 40 of the Exeter Book (s. x²), which boasts of being swifter is þæs gores sunu “than the son of the dung”, þone we wifel wordum nemnað “whom we call the beetle”.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The word means dirt and dung: the prose Exodus orders the calf's flesh, hide & gor to be burnt outside the camp, rendering Latin “fimum”, and the medical texts prescribe swine's dung and bull's dung.^[7][6] The glosses render Latin “fimus”, “laetamen” and “sordes”.^[8][2] Toller adds, with a query, a sense “pulp” of an apple in a recipe.^[8] In charter bounds LangScape glosses it “slime”.^[9]

Old English gor “dirt, dung” lies behind English gore; the sense “clotted blood”, especially blood shed in battle, appears only in the 1560s.^[4]

Timeline

• s. x² – þæs gores sunu “the son of the dung”, the beetle, in Riddle 40 of the Exeter Book.^[5][6]
• s. xi¹ or xi med. – mid swinenum gore “with swine's dung” in the Old English Herbarium (Cotton Vitellius C. iii).^[10][6]
• 1560s – English gore in the sense “clotted blood”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. dung, excrement.^[7][2]
2. dirt, filth.^[8][11]
3. perhaps the pulp of a fruit.^[8]

Descendants

• Middle English gore (→ English gore; Scots goor; Scots gure)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. gor
3. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 134
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. 223
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 485
8. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 482
9. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
10. ^ 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. 347
11. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 159