hring

Forms

hring m (strong a-stem; genitive singular hringes, nominative plural hringas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring, circle”).^[1][2] The noun is found as Old Frisian hring, Old Saxon hring, Old High German ring and Old Norse hringr.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary cites Finnish rengas as a Finnic borrowing of an earlier form *hrengaz.^[1]

Outside Germanic it has a match only in Slavic, in Proto-Slavic *krǫgъ (“circle”).^[2][3] Kroonen notes that the root breaks the Indo-European rule against a plain stop and a voiced aspirate in one root, so it probably arose after the Indo-European period, and he holds Ancient Greek κρίκος (kríkos, “ring”) to be unrelated.^[2] Köbler gives Pokorny's root Proto-Indo-European *(s)krengʰ- (“to turn, to bend”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is first recorded in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20, 890×897), where God tells Moses how to carry the ark: Wyrc feower hringas ælgyldene “make four rings all of gold”, and hang them on its four corners.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense was a ring as an ornament for a finger, arm or neck, also a betrothal ring.^[8] In the Orosius Hannibal sends home three measures of gold rings taken from the Roman dead.^[9][7] The poets used it for the rings of a mail coat and for the coat itself, as in Beowulf,^[10][11] and for the rings that fasten fetters.^[8] The idea of a circle gave the senses circle, circuit and cycle: the Old English Bede speaks of the nineteen-year hringas of the Easter reckoning, and Orosius of a fyren hring “globe of fire” and a golden ring around the sun.^[12][7][11] It also named a coil of a snake, a wreath, and the border of land seen as a circle.^[8] The glosses render Latin anulus.^[5]

It lived on as Middle English ring, now English ring.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 890×897 – feower hringas ælgyldene for the ark in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[6][7]
• s. x¹ – gold rings of the Roman dead in the Old English Orosius.^[9][7]
• s. x² – wōpes hring in the poems of the Vercelli and Exeter Books.^[11][15][16]
• s. x/xi – ring-mail and a gold neck ring in the Beowulf manuscript.^[17][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. a ring worn as an ornament on the finger, arm or neck; a betrothal ring.^[8][10]
2. (poetic) a ring of a mail coat; ring-mail.^[10][8]
3. a ring for fastening or hanging; a link, fetter.^[8][18]
4. a circle, circuit, cycle (of the year).^[11][18]
5. a round object, orb, globe; a coil; a wreath.^[11][8]
6. a border, the horizon; figuratively the limit of a jurisdiction.^[8]

Word family

• bānhring
• ēaghring
• ēarhring
• hringboga
• hringmere
• hringpytt
• hringed

Descendants

• Middle English ryng (→ English ring; Scots rhing; Scots ring)^[1]

Related words

• hrinġe
• hringan

Usage notes

The poetic phrase wōpes hring occurs four times, in poems Bosworth and Toller ascribe to one author,^[11] and they and Toller's Supplement take it to refer to the shedding of tears rather than to a sound.^[11][19] A separate noun hring “sound”, belonging to hringan (“to ring”), is inferred from compounds such as bel-hring.^[19][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 247
3. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 185
4. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 174
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. hring
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. 499
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 566
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. 249
10. ^ a b c d 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. hring
11. ^ 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. 561
12. ^ 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. 531
13. ^ 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. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. 704
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. 344
18. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 116
19. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 567