sæp

Forms

sæp n (strong a-stem; genitive singular sæpes, nominative plural sapu)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sap, from Proto-Germanic *sapą (“juice, sap”).^[1][2] Related words are Old High German saf and, with another suffix, Old Norse safi (“sap”).^[3][4]

Orel relates it, despite phonetic difficulties, to Latin sapa (“must boiled down thick”);^[3][2] Köbler too compares the Latin word and gives the root as Pokorny's *sap- "to taste, perceive".^[3][2] The EWA leaves open whether the Old High German word was borrowed from the Latin one as a gardening term or is a native word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest dated record is the compound sæpspōn (“chip with sap in it”) in Bald's Leechbook, of the mid-tenth century: the healer is to scrape off the green bark of young oak and boil þa sæp spone on cu meolce “the sappy chips in cow's milk”.^[6][7][8] The simplex appears in the poem Christ in the Exeter Book (s. x²), where at the Crucifixion trees run with tears, sæp wearð to swate “sap turned to blood”.^[9][7]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give only the sense sap, with glosses on Latin succus and the cedar's resin cedria; Ælfric speaks of a dry rod not quickened with sap.^[8] The compound stōrsæp is a gloss for "resin".^[10] The word is rare, with only eleven tokens in the corpus.^[7]

It lived on as Middle English sap, now English sap.^[1][11]

Timeline

• s. x med. – sæp spone “sappy chips” in Bald's Leechbook.^[6][7]
• s. x² – sæp wearð to swate in Christ in the Exeter Book.^[9][7]
• s. xi in. – in Ælfric's Life of Basil in the Lives of Saints (Cotton Julius E. vii).^[12][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. sap of plants and trees; juice.^[8][1][2]

Word family

• sæpspōn
• stōrsæp

Descendants

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

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sæp
3. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 319
4. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
5. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
6. ^ 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. 412
7. ^ a b c d e f Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 811
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. 223
10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 924
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ 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