slim

Forms

slīm n or m (strong a-stem; genitive singular slīmes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *slīmą (“slime”), from Proto-Indo-European *sley- (“smooth, slick, sticky”).^[1] The noun is shared with Old Norse slím, Old Frisian slīm, Middle Low German slīm and Old High German slīm, and lives on in Dutch slijm and German Schleim.^[2][3][4] Köbler gives the Old English noun as a neuter, Bosworth and Toller as masculine or neuter, and Orel leaves its gender open.^[5][6][3]

Kroonen derives it from Proto-Indo-European *sleh₁i-mo-, a word confined to Europe, beside a form in ⟨*-no-⟩ in Proto-Slavic *slina (“saliva”), and compares Ancient Greek λείμαξ (leímax, “slug”) and Latin līmāx (“snail, slug”).^[2] Orel adds Latin līmus (“mud, slime”) and Ancient Greek λειμών (leimṓn, “moist meadow”).^[3] Holthausen and Köbler place it under the root Proto-Indo-European *slei- (“slimy, sticky; to glide”) (Pokorny 662), and Etymonline connects it with līm (“birdlime”).^[7][5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Dictionary of Old English Corpus has four instances of the word: three in glossaries and one in an anonymous homily.^[9] In a glossary quoted by Bosworth and Toller it renders Latin limus “mud”, and elsewhere borbus and cena (for caenum) “mire, filth”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word meant soft mud and mire as well as slime.^[6][8] Clark Hall cites it from the Cambridge Psalter gloss and the glossaries.^[10] It survived as Middle English slim, slyme, now slime.^[1][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. slime.^[6][10]
2. soft mud, mire.^[6][8]

Descendants

• Middle English slim (→ Scots slyme; Scots slime; English slime)^[1]

Related words

• līm

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 455
3. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 351
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. slīm
6. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 884
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 299
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
10. ^ 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. 310