lyft

Forms

lyft f (strong i-stem; genitive singular lyfte, nominative plural lyfte)^[1] The gender varies between feminine, masculine and neuter.^[2][3] The Corpus Glossary has lybt.^[4][5] loft “air”, once in Ælfric's Hexameron (on lofte heó stynt, “it stands in the air”), is Wiktionary's alternative form of this word, but Holthausen and Durkin take it as a loan of the Old Norse cognate.^[1][6][7][8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *lufti, from Proto-Germanic *luftuz (“roof, air”).^[1][9] Wiktionary takes the West Germanic form as a remodelling of *luftu as an i-stem.^[1] Its cognates are Gothic 𐌻𐌿𐍆𐍄𐌿𐍃 (luftus, “air”), Old Norse lopt (“air, sky; loft”), Old Frisian luft, Old Saxon luft and Old High German luft.^[9][10][11]

Kroonen derives it as a tu-stem from the root of Proto-Germanic *laubą (“foliage”), with an original sense “roof”, perhaps one made of bark, comparing Russian луб (lub, “bast”).^[9] Orel relates it to Sanskrit लुम्पति (lumpáti, “breaks”) and Lithuanian lupti (“to peel”), and leaves open whether “upper floor” or “air” came first.^[10] Köbler connects it with Proto-Indo-European *leup- (“to peel, break off”) (Pokorny 690), Holthausen tentatively with words for lifting and for an arbour or roof.^[12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the Corpus Glossary (CCCC 144, first half of the ninth century), where lybt glosses Latin “sudum”, clear sky.^[4][5][2] The Vespasian Psalter gloss of the mid-ninth century has in wolcnum lyfte for “in nubibus aeris”, “in the clouds of the air”, in Psalm 17.^[13][5]

Semantic evolution

In the learned prose it is air as one of the four elements, beside earth, water and fire, and the thin air around the earth in which birds fly and through which sound travels.^[2][14] It is also the sky and the upper air, and sometimes a breeze or a cloud: the Gospels render “nubes” with it at Mark 9.7.^[2] The word is very common in the poetry, and on lyfte means “on high, aloft”.^[3][5] In Beowulf it is air and sky.^[15]

It continued as Middle English lift, air or the element air.^[16] Klaeber notes that it survives as Scots and poetic English lift “sky”, while English loft comes from the Old Norse word.^[15]

Timeline

• s. ix¹ – lybt for “sudum” in the Corpus Glossary.^[4][5]
• s. ix med. – in wolcnum lyfte “in the clouds of the air” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[13][5]
• 890×897 – the jacinth lyfte onlicusð on hiwe “most like the sky in colour” in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[17][5]
• s. x/xi – air and sky in the Beowulf manuscript.^[18][15]

Meanings

Noun

1. air, the atmosphere; air as one of the four elements.^[2][14]
2. the sky, the upper air, the heavens;^[14][3] on lyfte “aloft”.^[14][3]
3. a breeze, wind; a cloud.^[2][19]

Word family

• lyften
• lyfthelm

Descendants

• Middle English lift (→ Scots lift)^[16][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 650
3. ^ a b c d Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 223
4. ^ a b c 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. 76
5. ^ a b c d e f g Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
6. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 646
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 206
8. ^ Durkin, Philip (2014), Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 171
9. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 342
10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 249
11. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 208
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lyft
13. ^ 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. 329
14. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 623
15. ^ a b c 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. lyft
16. ^ 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)
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. 499
18. ^ 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
19. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 132