hrycg

Forms

hryċġ m (strong a-stem; genitive singular hryċġes, nominative plural hryċġas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hrugi, from Proto-Germanic *hrugjaz (“ridge, back”).^[1][2] The Proto-Germanic noun survives as Old Norse hryggr, Old Frisian hreg, Old Saxon hruggi, Old Dutch ruggi and Old High German rucki or hrucki.^[2][3]

Kroonen finds no certain cognates outside Germanic: Irish crúach (“heap, hill”) and Welsh crug may be loans from Germanic, and a link with Latin crux (“cross”) is only possible.^[2] Köbler, with a question mark, and de Vries connect it with a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreuk- (“to turn, to bend”).^[3][4] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a grant of King Æthelwulf of 843, preserved in a single sheet held to be contemporary: among the swine pastures “which in our Saxon tongue are called denbera” it names cadaca hrygc, a ridge.^[5][6] The bounds of a Mercian grant of 869 begin On sceomman hrycge “at Sceomma's ridge”.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller's Supplement gives the spine of a man or an animal first and the ridge of land second.^[8] The body sense dominates in the prose: the Pastoral Care quotes the psalmist's hiora hrygc simle gebieged “their back always bent”, and Ælfric notes that one who sees a man's face does not see his back.^[9][10][6] The ridge of land is the sense of the charter bounds and of compounds such as stānhrycg and sandhrycg.^[8][11] In Christ the word is used of the sea, ofer hreone hrycg “over the rough ridge (of the waves)”.^[12][6] Glosses render Latin “dorsum” and “spina”.^[3]

It continued as Middle English rigge, now English ridge, perhaps strengthened by Old Norse hryggr; the sense “back” was still the main one in Middle English.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 843 – cadaca hrygc among the swine pastures of Æthelwulf's grant at Little Chart, Kent.^[5][6]
• 869 – On sceomman hrycge in the bounds of Burgred's grant at Upthrop.^[7][6]
• 890×897 – hiora hrygc simle gebieged “their back always bent” in the Pastoral Care.^[9][6]
• s. x² – ofer hreone hrycg “over the rough ridge (of the sea)” in Christ in the Exeter Book.^[12][6]
• s. x ex. – his hricg “his back” in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies.^[10][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) the back, the spine of a man or animal.^[8][3][15]
2. a ridge, a raised strip of land.^[8][11][15]

Word family

• hrycgbān
• stānhrycg
• sandhrycg
• middelhrycg
• timberhrycg

Descendants

• * Middle English rigge (→ English ridge; Scots rig)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 250
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. hrycg
4. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 262
5. ^ a b The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 293
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 214
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. 568
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 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
11. ^ a b LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
12. ^ 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
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. ^ 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. hrycg