pol

Forms

pōl m (strong a-stem; genitive singular pōles, nominative plural pōlas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *pōlaz (“pool”).^[1][2][3] The noun is West Germanic: Old Frisian pōl, Middle Low German pōl, Middle Dutch poel and Old High German pfuol.^[2][3] Holthausen and Orel add a Norwegian dialect word from a derivative in -j-,^[4][3] and Köbler compares Old Norse pollr (“round bay, pond”).^[5][6]

There is no certain Indo-European etymology.^[2][3] Kroonen takes it for a non-Indo-European word closely matched by Lithuanian balà (“marsh”), beside a wider group with a dental, such as Albanian baltë (“mud, swamp”) and Romanian baltă (“mud, swamp”), which he holds to be later than Proto-Indo-European, and he suggests that Latin palūs (“fen, swamp”) belongs to the same cluster of European regional words.^[2] Orel also connects the Baltic words, with Latvian bala (“woodless valley”), and thinks a link with the Indo-European root for “white” hardly possible;^[3] Köbler nevertheless puts it under that root, Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“shining, white”).^[5] Wiktionary assumes a pre-Germanic form with /b/ and calls the group a possible European substrate word, with Proto-Slavic *bolto (“swamp”).^[1] Middendorff rules out a loan from Latin.^[7]

Initial /p/ is rare in native Old English words because Proto-Indo-European /b/, its source, was rare;^[8] Hogg gives this word as an example of the sound.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first found in English bounds of Godmersham and Challock in Kent, written on the back of the record of a synod held in 824; the single sheet is of the ninth century and has been judged genuine and contemporary.^[9] The bounds run “norð be ea to dreaman uuyrðe on fisc pol”, north along the river to a fish-pool.^[9][10] In the Pastoral Care, in the manuscript of 890×897, Solomon says “ðætte suiðe deop pol wære gewered on ðæs wisan monnes mode” (“that a very deep pool was dammed up in the wise man's mind”), for Latin “aqua profunda”.^[11][12][10]

Semantic evolution

The word means a pool or pond of standing or deep water, and in the gospels it renders Latin “natatoria”, the pool of Siloam.^[12][5] It is frequent in the bounds of charters, both alone and in names such as the fish-pool, the mill-pool and the wolf-pool, and the place-name studies count the form pull with it.^[7][13][12] Nearly all its records are in prose.^[10]

The word lived on as Middle English pol, now English pool.^[1][14]

Timeline

• s. ix – on fisc pol in the bounds endorsed on the record of the synod of 824.^[9][10]
• 890×897 – suiðe deop pol in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[11][10]
• s. xi in. – Maurus walks on the water of a wide pool in Ælfric's Lives of Saints.^[15][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. a pool, pond; deep or standing water.^[12][16][5]
2. a pool as a landmark in the bounds of charters.^[7][13]

Word family

• fisċpōl
• mylenpōl
• mǣrpōl
• hrēodpōl
• tēampōl
• wīþiġpōl

Descendants

• Middle English pol (→ English pool; Middle Scots pule; Middle Scots puyl)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 398
3. ^ a b c d e Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 292
4. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 248
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. pōl
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 104
8. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 2.48
9. ^ a b c 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 1434
10. ^ 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
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 c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 776
13. ^ a b LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
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. 282
16. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 274