sciftan

Forms

sċiftan (weak class 1; third-person singular present sċifteþ, past singular sċifte, past plural sċifton)^[1] Also written sċyftan.^[1] The laws of Cnut and the Peterborough Chronicle write scyftan, scyfte.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną (“to divide; to put in order”), an earlier *skipatjaną.^[1][3] The verb has cognates in Old Norse skipta (“to exchange, divide, decide”), Old Frisian skifta (“to determine”) and Middle Low German schiften (“to divide, order”).^[4][5][6] Holthausen connects it with Middle Low German schicht (“order, division, row, layer”) and with Old English scipian.^[4][5] De Vries derives the Old Norse verb from the same earlier form and lists the Old English verb among its cognates;^[6] he takes the English dialect form with ⟨sk⟩ from the Norse verb.^[6]

Wiktionary explains that earlier form as a formation related to *skipōną (“to arrange”) with the verbal suffix *-atjaną.^[1] Köbler and Wiktionary take it further back to Proto-Indo-European *skeyb- (“to cut, separate”), an extension of *skēy- (“to cut, divide”) (Pokorny 922 and 919).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is late and rare: seven occurrences in six texts, none of them in a manuscript before the eleventh century.^[7] The earliest dated is the interlinear gloss of the Regularis Concordia in Cotton Tiberius A. iii, of the mid-eleventh century, where þæt dihte l scifte renders Latin “hoc dictauerit”, of what the need of a sensible reason may require.^[8][9][7]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give two senses.^[2] The first is to divide, to share out: in the laws of Cnut the heirs of a man fallen in battle fon … to lande & to æhtan & scyftan hit swyðe rihte “shall succeed to the land and goods and divide it quite justly”.^[2][7] Liebermann takes this as a term of the law of inheritance.^[10] The second is to appoint, ordain or arrange: Wulfstan writes of Moses se ðe … be Godes agenum dihte rihte lage scyfte “who by God's own command laid down the right law”, and the Peterborough Chronicle, in the annal for 1046, says Þa scyfte man Harold eorl up þæs cynges scipe “then Earl Harold was appointed to the king's ship”.^[2][7] The Old English Rule of Chrodegang uses it of guiding one's way of life: we sceolon ure lifes weg wislice scyftan for Latin “iter nostrum temperare debemus”.^[9][7]

The verb lived on as Middle English schiften, now English shift.^[1] Etymonline notes that the senses arrange and divide are now obsolete or dialectal; by about 1200 the verb meant to dispose or set in order, and the sense to alter, change appears by the mid-thirteenth century.^[11]

Timeline

• s. xi med. – scifte glossing Latin “dictauerit” in the Regularis Concordia gloss (Cotton Tiberius A. iii).^[8][7]
• s. xi³/⁴ – ure lifes weg wislice scyftan “guide the way of our life wisely” in the Old English Rule of Chrodegang (CCCC 191).^[12][7]
• 1046 – Þa scyfte man Harold eorl up þæs cynges scipe in the Peterborough Chronicle's annal for that year.^[2][7]
• c. 1200 – Middle English schiften “to dispose, set in order”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. to divide, to share out (land, an inheritance).^[2][10][13]
2. to appoint, ordain; to arrange, put in order.^[2][9][5]

Word family

• ġesċiftan
• tōsċiftan

Descendants

• Middle English schiften (→ Scots schift; Scots shift; English shift)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 831
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
4. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 278
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sciftan
6. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 493
7. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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. 307
9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 696
10. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 190
11. ^ a b 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. 97
13. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 170