læt

læt¹ slow, late

Pronunciation

• /læt/^[1]

Forms

læt (comparative lætra, superlative latost)^[1]

Etymology

The word for slow and late is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *lat, from Proto-Germanic *lataz (“lax, sluggish”).^[1][2] Its cognates are Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐍄𐍃 (lats, “sluggish”), Old Norse latr (“slow, lazy”), Old Frisian let (“late”), Old Saxon lat (“lazy”) and Old High German laz (“lazy”).^[3][4][5]

Kroonen and Orel tie it to the strong verb Proto-Germanic *lētaną (“to let”), the source of lǣtan.^[3][4] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *lh₁d-o-.^[3] Köbler gives the root Proto-Indo-European *leh₁d- (“to let, slacken”), and Wiktionary compares Latin lassus (“weary”).^[5][1] The factitive verb made from it is lettan (“to hinder, delay”).^[3]

Proto-West Germanic ⟨*lat⟩ became ⟨læt⟩ in Old English, and like glæd and smæl the adjective alternates between ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨a⟩ in its inflected forms (comparative ⟨lætra⟩, superlative ⟨latost⟩).^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The bare form læt is shared in the corpus with forms of lǣtan and lǣdan, so the early record comes from the dictionaries: Bosworth and Toller quote the Pastoral Care of 890×897, hræd to gehieranne & læt to sprecenne “quick to hear and slow to speak”, for the Latin “tardus ad loquendum”.^[7][8] Forms that can belong only to the adjective appear first in the revised Gregory's Dialogues of the early eleventh century: Ða þa seo lætre tid eallunga weox “when the later hour had fully come”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is slow and sluggish, often with a genitive of the thing in which one is slow: in Beowulf the hero is nalas elnes læt “not slow of courage”.^[7][11] It also means slack and negligent, and in Bosworth and Toller's medical example the slow digestion of some foods.^[12] The sense “late” appears in the Old English Gospels at Luke 1:21, rendering Latin “tardaret”, and in the comparative “later” of time.^[7][10] In glosses it renders Latin tardus.^[5]

It lived on as Middle English late, now English late.^[1][13] Etymonline dates the sense “in the latter part of a period” in English from the mid-thirteenth century.^[13]

Timeline

• 890×897 – læt to sprecenne “slow to speak” in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[7][8]
• s. x² – late “slow” in Andreas in the Vercelli Book.^[14][15]
• s. x/xi – nalas elnes læt “not slow of courage” in the Beowulf manuscript.^[16][11]
• s. xi¹ – seo lætre tid “the later hour” in the revised Gregory's Dialogues (Hatton 76).^[9][10]
• s. xi med. – swa wæs hit lætre “so it was the later” in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D.^[17][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. slow, sluggish, tardy (with a genitive or a preposition of the thing).^[7][11]
2. slack, negligent.^[5]
3. late.^[7][5]

Word family

• late
• latian
• lætnes
• lætsum
• lettan
• unlæt

Descendants

• Middle English late (→ English late; Scots late)^[1]

læt² half-free man

Pronunciation

• /læːt/^[1]

Forms

lǣt m (strong a-stem; genitive singular lǣtes, nominative plural lātas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a man of the half-free class is inherited from Proto-Germanic *lētaz (“freedman, half-free man”).^[1][18] Its cognates are Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (fralēts, “freedman”), Old Frisian lēt (“freedman”) and Old High German lāz (“half-free man”).^[19][18][1] Orel, Köbler and Wiktionary derive it from the strong verb Proto-Germanic *lētaną (“to let, release”), the source of lǣtan, so that the word first meant a man let go.^[19][18][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word occurs only in the laws of Æthelberht of Kent, where the wergild of a lǣt is fixed in three grades: Gif læt ofslæhð, ðone selestan LXXX scillingum forgelde “whoever kills a lǣt of the highest rank is to pay eighty shillings”, with sixty and forty shillings for the second and third ranks.^[7][20]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) a man of the class between the slave and the ceorl, a half-free man, a serf.^[7][20][1]