scort

Forms

sċort (comparative sċortra or sċiertra, superlative sċortost or sċiertest)^[1] Also written sċeort: early West Saxon has only sċort, while late West Saxon usually writes sċeort beside the rarer sċort.^[2] In North Northumbrian sċeort is the regular spelling.^[3] The comparative sċyrtra, superlative sċyrtest, have the i-umlaut of a pre-Old English comparative in *-irā.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *skurt, from Proto-Germanic *skurtaz (“short”).^[1][6][7] The adjective survives in Old High German scurz (“short”);^[6][7][8][9] Old Norse has only the noun Old Norse skortr (“lack, want”) and the neuter Old Norse skort.^[6][7][8][9]

Holthausen and Köbler connect it with the verb sċieran (“to cut”), and Köbler derives it from the root Proto-Indo-European *skerd- (“to cut”).^[8][10] Orel calls a link with Old Irish scerdid (“scrapes off”) and Lithuanian skérdėti (“to crack, split”) probable.^[6] Wiktionary explains the Proto-Germanic adjective as made from Proto-Germanic *skertaną (“to cut off, shorten”) or from an iterative verb, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerdʰ- (“to cut up”), and compares Latin curtus (“shortened”).^[1] Etymonline takes the meaning to be “something cut off”.^[11]

The ⟨e⟩ of the spelling ⟨sċeort⟩ is one of the spellings of “palatal diphthongization” after /ʃ/; whether it marks a real diphthong or only the palatal consonant is disputed.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the mid-ninth-century Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter, where in rime scortum “in a short number, few in number” renders the Latin “in numero brevi” of Psalm 104.12: Mid ðy hie werun in rime scortum “when they were few in number”.^[13][14] The Pastoral Care in Hatton 20, written 890×897, uses it of time: our fleshly fathers taught us to suiðe scortre hwile “for far too short a while”.^[15][14]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller divide the senses into the length of an object (a short bed, a short ship, the shortest way), height of stature (Zacchaeus was scort on wæstme “short of stature” in Ælfric), and time: a short period, a short-lived thing set against what never ends, and the brief way of telling something.^[16] Ælfric's Grammar uses it of a short vowel, on scortne a.^[16] In the glossaries it renders Latin “brevis”, and short objects such as “naviscella”, a small ship, are glossed with it.^[10][16] Field names in the charter bounds have it too, as in to sceortan stane.^[17]

The word lived on as Middle English short, now English short.^[18][11]

Timeline

• s. ix med. – in rime scortum for Latin “in numero brevi” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[13][14]
• 890×897 – to suiðe scortre hwile “for too short a while” in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[15][14]
• s. x med. – the short fame of great men in the Old English Boethius (Cotton Otho A. vi).^[19][16]
• s. x ex. – several uses in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I (Royal 7 C. xii).^[20][14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. short in length, not long.^[16][21]
2. short in stature, not tall.^[16][5]
3. short in time; short-lived, brief.^[16][21]
4. (grammar) of a vowel: short.^[16]

Word family

• sċortian
• sċortnes
• sċyrtan
• ġesċyrtan
• sċyrte

Descendants

• Middle English schort (→ English short; Scots short; Scots schort)^[1]

Related words

• sċieran

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.69
3. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.70
4. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 267
5. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 171
6. ^ a b c d Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 346
7. ^ a b c Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, p. 503
8. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 281
9. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. skortr
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. scort
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Hogg, Richard M. (1992), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1: Phonology, Oxford: Blackwell, p. § 5.59
13. ^ 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. 329
14. ^ a b c d e Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
15. ^ 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. 499
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 839
17. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 113
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ 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. 296
20. ^ 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
21. ^ 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. 297