sceald

Forms

sċeald (adjective; weak oblique scealdan in charter bounds)^[2]

Etymology

Wiktionary suggests that it may continue Proto-Germanic *skalidaz, the past participle of *skaljaną (“to dry up, become shallow”), from *skalaz (“parched, shallow”).^[1] Etymonline also traces it to this adjective, which is behind Swedish skäll (“thin”), Low German schol and West Frisian skol (“not deep”), and calls the word of uncertain origin.^[3] Köbler's Germanic dictionary has the same adjective, from Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European *skel- (“to dry up”), but lists only later German words under it.^[4] Köbler's Old English dictionary instead points to a noun ⟨sceald⟩ “reed” found in compounds, which Holthausen treats separately.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective is recorded only in the bounds of charters, all of them in later copies: the earliest copy is in the grant of King Edmund of 940 for Exton in Hampshire, which survives in a cartulary of the mid-twelfth century, where the bounds run utt on scealdan ford “out to the shallow ford”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Toller gave it, with a query, as “shoal, shallow”, from such boundary phrases as scealdan fleot “shallow creek” and scealdan ford.^[2] LangScape glosses it “shallow”.^[9]

It survived as Middle English sholde, from the oblique form scealdan, and is now English shoal, which lost its final -d in the sixteenth century.^[3]

Timeline

• s. xii med. – scealdan ford “shallow ford” in a copy of King Edmund's charter of 940 for Exton.^[7][8]
• s. xiii in. – scealdan ford in a copy of a charter of 944.^[10][8]
• 16th century – English shoal loses the final -d.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. shallow, of little depth.^[2][11][5]

Descendants

• Middle English schold (→ English shoal; Middle Scots schald; Middle Scots schauld)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 695
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sceald
6. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 273
7. ^ a b 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 463
8. ^ a b c Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
9. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
10. ^ 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 500
11. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 292