modor

Forms

mōdor f (nominative plural mōdra)^[1] Dative singular mēder with i-umlaut, beside uninflected mōdor; also mōdur, mōder and mōddor.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *mōder, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr (“mother”).^[1][4] The noun is shared by Old Norse móðir, Old Frisian mōder, Old Saxon mōdar, Old Dutch muoder and Old High German muoter;^[4][5] Gothic lacks it.^[4][5][6]

It is the Indo-European word for “mother”, Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr, also continued by Latin māter, Ancient Greek μήτηρ (mḗtēr), Old Irish máthir and Lithuanian mótė.^[4][5][7] All the Germanic forms point to *mōder- rather than *mōþer-, which Kroonen takes to show that the accent had already moved to the suffix in Proto-Germanic, as it did in Sanskrit; he holds the shift almost certainly analogical to the word for “father”.^[4]

In Old English the word kept the r-stem inflection, as did the kinship nouns brōþor, dohtor, fæder and sweostor.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the mid-ninth-century gloss of the Vespasian Psalter: “from breostum modur minre … of innoðe of wombe modur minre”, from my mother's breasts, from my mother's womb, in Psalm 21:10–11.^[9][10] In the Pastoral Care (890×897) sinners run to their teacher as “cild to his moder greadan”, a child to its mother's lap.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller define it as a mother of human beings or of animals; the laws speak of the mother of Christ and, figuratively, of the Church as a spiritual mother.^[3][12] With an ordinal it names female ancestors in the glossaries: þridde mōdor renders “proavia”, great-grandmother.^[3] It is used of descent on the mother's side: the Chronicle for 1075 calls a man Bryttisc on his moder healfe, British on his mother's side.^[13] The subject of an Exeter Book riddle is mōddor monigra cynna, mother of many kinds.^[3]

It continued as Middle English moder, now English mother.^[14][15]

Timeline

• s. ix med. – of wombe modur minre in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[9][10]
• 890×897 – cild to his moder greadan in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[11][10]
• s. x² – fæder and modor in an Exeter Book riddle.^[3][16]
• a1150 – modres in a twelfth-century homily copy, the earliest Middle English record in the MED.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. a mother, of humans or animals.^[3][17]
2. (figurative) a spiritual mother, the Church.^[12]
3. with an ordinal, a female ancestor: þridde mōdor great-grandmother.^[3]

Word family

• mōdriġe
• mēdren
• ġemēdred

Descendants

• Middle English moder (→ English mother; English mither; Scots mither)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 2.93
3. ^ 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. 695
4. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 371
5. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 273
6. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 435
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 224
8. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 2.91
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. 329
10. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 148
13. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 641
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. mōdor