sala

Forms

sala m (weak; genitive singular salan, nominative plural salan)^[1]

Etymology

Holthausen takes it borrowed from Old Norse sala (“sale”), and Etymonline reports the OED's view that it probably comes from a Scandinavian source of this kind.^[2][3] Orel and Köbler instead list the Old English noun with the Old Norse and Old High German words under Proto-Germanic *salō (“handing over, delivery”), the source also of Old High German sala (“handing over, transfer of property”).^[4][5] Orel refers it to the verb *saljaną (“to hand over”), continued in sellan (“to give, sell”), and Köbler compares the noun with that verb and with the Norse noun.^[4][6] Köbler derives the Proto-Germanic noun from Proto-Indo-European *sel- (“to take, grasp”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded only once, in a glossary, where sala renders Latin “venditio” “sale”, beside ceap for “distractio”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Clark Hall gives the meaning as “act of selling”.^[9] Though barely recorded in Old English, the word lived on as Middle English sale, now English sale; the sense “public auction” is recorded by the 1670s and that of a selling of goods at reduced prices by 1866.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. a sale, the act of selling.^[7][9][6]

Related words

• sellan

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 269
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 316
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sala
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 813
8. ^ Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
9. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 288