hærfest

Forms

hærfest m (strong a-stem; genitive singular hærfestes, nominative plural hærfestas)^[1] Also herfest, the form under which Sweet lists it.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *harbist, from Proto-Germanic *harbistaz (“autumn”).^[1][3] Its cognates are Old Norse haustr, Old Frisian herfst and Old High German herbist, with Dutch herfst and German Herbst among the modern languages.^[3][4] Kroonen explains the Norse form as a distortion that arose after the loss of the middle vowel.^[3]

Kroonen derives the noun from a verb *harbijaną (“to pluck”), which survives in a Norwegian dialect verb meaning “to snatch”.^[3] Outside Germanic he compares Ancient Greek καρπός (karpós, “fruit, crop”), Latin carpō (“to pluck, gather”) and Lithuanian kirpti (“to cut”).^[3] Köbler, Wiktionary and Etymonline trace the family to Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“to pluck, cut”).^[4][1][5]

The ⟨æ⟩ is not the breaking that would be expected before ⟨r⟩ and a consonant: Hogg explains it by i-umlaut caused by the vowel of the second syllable.^[6][7] Wiktionary takes the West Saxon form as borrowed from Mercian, where West Saxon would be expected to have ⟨ie⟩.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in the Parker Chronicle, written from the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries, in the annal for 877: “& þa on hærfæste gefor se here on Miercna lond” (“and then in autumn the army went into the land of the Mercians”).^[8][9] The word names the season there.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old English hærfest is above all the name of a season, autumn, the third of the four, beside lencten, sumor and winter.^[11][10] The Menologium makes it begin seven days after Lammas and end when winter comes six days after All Saints.^[10] In Ælfric's Glossary it renders Latin “autumnus”, and in the Boethius the autumn is welig on wæstmum “rich in fruits”.^[11] In the estate treatise Rectitudines it is the time of reaping, and the Latin Quadripartitus renders it “Augustus”.^[12]

Middle English hervest kept the season sense and added the time when the crops are ripe and the month of August.^[13] Etymonline notes that the sense “time of gathering crops” is recorded from the mid-thirteenth century, and the word survives as English harvest.^[5]

Timeline

• s. ix/x – on hærfæste “in autumn” in the Parker Chronicle, annal 877.^[8][9]
• s. x med. – se hærfest “rich in fruits” in the Boethius.^[14][9]
• s. x med. – in Bald's Leechbook.^[15][9]
• s. x² – in The Phoenix and Maxims II.^[16][9]
• s. x ex. – in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I.^[17][9]
• Middle English – Middle English hervest “autumn; the time of harvest”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. autumn, the season between summer and winter.^[11][4]
2. harvest time, the season of reaping.^[12][4]

Word family

• hærfestlīċ
• hærfesttīd
• hærfesttīma
• hærfestmōnaþ

Descendants

• Middle English hervest (→ English harvest; Scots hairst; Scots harvest)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 102
3. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 210
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. hærfest
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.16
7. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.76
8. ^ 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. 83
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 498
11. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 501
12. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 109
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. 296
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. 412
16. ^ 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
17. ^ 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