greot

Forms

grēot n^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *greutą (“grit”).^[1][2] Its cognates are Old Saxon griot (“sand, shore”), Old High German grioz (“gravel, sand”) and Old Norse grjót (“stones”).^[3][4][5]

Köbler derives the Proto-Germanic noun from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreud- (“to rub, grind”), an extension of the root *gʰer- (“to rub”).^[2] Holthausen sets it beside Old High German firgriozan (“to grind to pieces”).^[3] Heidermanns sets up a Proto-Germanic adjective of the same form meaning “coarsely ground”, and explains the sense “thick, great” of the adjective (grēat) as coming from “coarse-grained”.^[6] Wiktionary compares Lithuanian grúodas (“frost; frozen street dirt”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the Vercelli Book, written in the second half of the tenth century: in Andreas the saint and his thanes go down at dawn over the dunes to the sea, gangan on greote “walking on the gravel”.^[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give the senses grit, sand, dust, earth and gravel.^[4] The word is mostly poetic: the forms with an ending occur in the corpus only in poetry, in Andreas, Elene, The Phoenix, Guthlac, The Battle of Maldon and Beowulf.^[8] In Andreas it is the earth, clods, gravel, sand and the floor of a building.^[9] In the poems the dead lie in it, as in the Phoenix's in greotes fæðm “into the embrace of the earth”, and it is the dust the serpent must eat in Genesis (ðu scealt greot etan).^[4] In prose Ælfric has it for earth dug out and carried away.^[4] The charter bounds use it for gravel.^[10][11]

It lived on as Middle English griet and survives in English grit.^[1][12]

Timeline

• s. x² – gangan on greote “walking on the gravel” in Andreas, in the Vercelli Book.^[7][8]
• s. x² – in greotes fæðm “into the embrace of the earth” in The Phoenix, and a ship grinding wið greote “on the gravel” in Guthlac, in the Exeter Book.^[13][8]
• s. x/xi – gold on greote “gold in the earth” in Beowulf.^[14][8][15]

Meanings

Noun

1. earth, soil; the earth as the place of the dead.^[4][15]
2. sand, gravel; the strand or shore.^[4][9]
3. dust, grit.^[4][16]

Descendants

• Middle English griet (→ English grit)^[1]

Related words

• grēat
• grot
• grūt
• grytt

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. gréot
3. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 137
4. ^ a b c d e f g Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 488
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter
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. 704
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 c North, Richard; Bintley, Michael D. J., eds. (2016), Andreas: An Edition, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (glossary)
10. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
11. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 61
12. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. 223
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. 344
15. ^ 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. grēot
16. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 99