sloh

Forms

slōh m or n^[1]

Etymology

Wiktionary gives it as inherited from Proto-Germanic *slōhaz, of unknown ultimate origin, and sets beside it Middle High German sluoche (“ditch”), Middle Low German slōch (“muddy place”) and dialectal Swedish slaga (“swamp”).^[1] Holthausen names the same Middle Low German word and connects the Swedish one only with a “perhaps”;^[2] Köbler leaves the origin open, and Etymonline calls the word of uncertain origin.^[3][4]

The noun belongs to the small group whose stem-final ⟨h⟩ is lost between vowels, like sċōh: beside ⟨slōh⟩ there are the dative ⟨slō⟩ and forms with ⟨g⟩ such as ⟨slōges⟩.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is common in the bounds of charters.^[6][7] Among the earliest copies is that of a Worcester lease of 849 for land at Cofton Hackett, surviving in an eleventh-century copy, whose bounds run in readan sloe “into the red slough”.^[8][9] The Old English Bede uses it of a hollow in a road that a horse leapt over.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller define a slough as a hollow filled with mire, a pathless and miry place, and the word glosses Latin devium.^[6] Middendorff explains it in field names as a puddle or mudhole, also the wallow of a wild boar, and LangScape lists it among the words of charter bounds.^[7][10] In Wulfstan the soul defiled by sin is compared to a stone laid in a foul slough.^[6] Middle English slough kept the sense of a mudhole or swamp and gained the figurative one of a degraded state.^[11]

Timeline

• s. xi¹ – in readan sloe in the bounds of a lease of 849, in an eleventh-century copy.^[8][9]
• s. xi¹ – to þan ealdan slo “to the old slough” in the bounds of a charter of 969, in an eleventh-century copy.^[12][9]
• c. 1225 – Middle English sloh in the Life of St Katherine.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. a slough, a hollow filled with mire; a miry place.^[6][13]
2. mud, mire.^[14][3]

Descendants

• Middle English slough (→ English slough)^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 300
3. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. slōh
4. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 3.25
6. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 886
7. ^ a b Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 118
8. ^ 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 1272
9. ^ 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
10. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
11. ^ a b 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)
12. ^ 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 1325
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 178