sacc

Forms

sacc m (strong a-stem; genitive singular sacces, nominative plural saccas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin saccus (“sack, bag”).^[2][3] Durkin lists it, with the variant sæcc, among the Latin loans of Old English that name containers and vessels.^[4] The borrowing was early: Orel and Wiktionary place it in Proto-Germanic, as Proto-Germanic *sakkuz, the source of Old Norse sekkr, Old Saxon sakk and Old High German sac.^[5][1][6] Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌺𐌿𐍃 (sakkus) is listed with them by Orel, but Etymonline takes it to come probably directly from Greek.^[5][7]

The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “coarse cloth of hair; sack”).^[8][1] Köbler compares an Assyrian word for a sack.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in the Junius Psalter gloss, written in the first half of the tenth century, where the form sæc renders Latin “saccum”, the sackcloth of Psalm 29: þu toslite sæc minne “you have torn my sackcloth”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give the sense “sack, bag”, with the travellers' bag of the gospels and the sacks of corn of Joseph's brothers in the Old English Genesis.^[11] The form sæcc is used for sackcloth, the coarse cloth of mourning and penance.^[12][13] In Gregory's Dialogues a holy man carries his books in leather bags (on fellenum saccum).^[3][10]

West Saxon sacc stands beside Mercian sec and Kentish sæc.^[14][7] Middle English sak continues the Old English forms, with support from Old Norse, Old French and Latin.^[14]

Timeline

• s. x¹ – sæc minne “my sackcloth” in the Junius Psalter gloss.^[9][10]
• s. xi¹ – books carried on fellenum saccum “in leather bags” in the revised Gregory's Dialogues (Hatton 76).^[15][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. a sack, bag.^[11][16][6]
2. sackcloth (chiefly in the form sæcc).^[12][1]

Word family

• sæċċing

Descendants

• Middle English sak (→ English sack; Scots seck)^[1]

Usage notes

The forms sæc and sæcc also belong to sæcc “strife, battle”, a native word frequent in poetry; the two are often confused in the record.^[12][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 266
3. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 691
4. ^ Durkin, Philip (2014), Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 112
5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 315
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sacc
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. 515
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 Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 807
12. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 808
13. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 692
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. ^ 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. 503
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. 286
17. ^ 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. sæċċ