sape

Forms

sāpe f (weak n-stem; genitive singular sāpan, nominative plural sāpan)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *saipā, from Proto-Germanic *saipǭ (“soap”).^[1][2] Its relatives are Middle Low German sēpe and Old High German seifa, which meant both “soap” and “resin”.^[3][4][5]

The further origin is unclear.^[1] Orel derives the noun from the strong verb Proto-Germanic *sīpaną (“to drip, flow”), Holthausen connects it with sīpian (“to drip”), and Köbler with the root Proto-Indo-European *seyb- (“to pour out, drip”).^[3][4][6] Wiktionary suggests that the first sense may have been “amber, resin”.^[1]

The noun is not a borrowing of Latin: Etymonline holds Late Latin sāpō, first recorded by Pliny as a pomade for colouring the hair, to be itself a loan from Germanic, the source of the Romance words for soap.^[7] The Middle English Dictionary compares the Latin word and Old English sāp (“amber, unguent”).^[8] Proto-Germanic /ai/ appears as ⟨ā⟩, as in stān and āc.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in Bald's Leechbook, in a manuscript of the mid-tenth century: a remedy of four herbs bids the leech do þæron ealdre sapan cucler fulne gif þu hæbbe “put a spoonful of old soap into it, if you have any”.^[9][10] The Orosius passages that attest.py lists under the word name Sapan, Persa cyning, the Persian king Shapur, and are not this noun.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Most of the Old English examples are medical: soap is mixed into salves and drinks, and the word is also glossed “salve”.^[11][12] Ælfric uses washing with soap as an image: the sick man is cleansed of his sins through illness as a dirty garment is through soap.^[13][10] The monastic sign language has a sign for asking for soap, rubbing the hands together.^[1][11] In the glossaries it renders Latin “sapo” and “lomentum”.^[13] Holthausen and Köbler also gloss it “resin”, the second sense of the Old High German word.^[4][6]

The word lived on as Middle English sope, now English soap; the early Middle English Ancrene Riwle still has the form sape.^[8][7]

Timeline

• s. x med. – ealdre sapan cucler fulne in Bald's Leechbook.^[9][10]
• s. x ex. – a dirty garment washed þurh sapan in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I.^[14][10]
• s. xi¹ or xi med. – soap in a remedy of the Old English Herbarium.^[15][10]
• c. 1230 – Middle English sape, the pedlar crying his soap, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. soap.^[13][12][16]
2. (medicine) a salve.^[12][13]

Word family

• pillsāpe
• ārsāpe

Descendants

• Middle English sope (→ English soap; Middle Scots saip)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 171
3. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 313
4. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 270
5. ^ 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. sāpe
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c 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)
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. 412
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 694
12. ^ a b c Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 290
13. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 816
14. ^ 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. 407
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. 347
16. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 167