smeortan

Forms

*smeortan (third-person singular present smiert, past singular smeart, past plural smurton)^[1] The verb is not recorded by itself: only the present participle in the compound fȳrsmeortende and the noun smeortung attest it.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *smertan (“to be painful”), from Proto-Germanic *smertaną (“to hurt”).^[1][3] The strong verb survives in Old High German smerzan and in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German.^[4][5][6] Proto-West Germanic /e/ was broken to ⟨eo⟩ before /r/ and a consonant, as in steorfan beside Old High German sterban.^[7]

Kroonen derives it from Proto-Indo-European *smerd- and compares Ancient Greek σμερδνός (smerdnós, “terrible, dreadful”), Latin mordeō (“to bite”) and Lithuanian smirdėti (“to stink”).^[4] Holthausen gives the Latin and Greek words,^[6] while Orel names only the Baltic and Slavic verbs for "to stink", and only as probably related.^[5] Köbler leaves the root open, suggesting with a query Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to rub”) or Proto-Indo-European *smel- (“to burn”).^[8] The adjective smeart (“painful”) is formed on the same base.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb's only Old English record is the compound participle in the Old English Orosius, in the Tollemache manuscript of the first half of the tenth century: of the plagues of Egypt, the third was that gnættas comon ofer eall þæt land … mid fyrsmeortendum bitum "gnats came over all the land with bites that smarted like fire", rendering Latin “ignitos ciniphes”.^[9][10][2]

Semantic evolution

Old English shows only the sense "to smart, be painful", in the participle and in the noun smeortung "smarting, itching", which glosses Latin “prurigo”.^[2][11] Toller asked whether a glossed to smorcenne might be a miswriting of the verb in a sense "to burn", comparing Old High German “cremare”.^[12]

The verb is much better recorded in Middle English, as Middle English smerten, with the past smeart in the Trinity Homilies; it survives as English smart.^[13][2][14]

Timeline

• s. x¹ or x²/⁴ – mid fyrsmeortendum bitum in the Old English Orosius (Tollemache manuscript).^[9][10]
• a1200 – Middle English smerten in the Trinity Homilies.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. to smart, be painful (recorded only in the participle of fȳrsmeortende “smarting like fire”).^[2][15]

Word family

• fȳrsmeortende
• smeortung

Descendants

• Middle English smerten (→ English smart; Scots smert; Scots smairt)^[1]

Related words

• smeart

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 888
3. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 127
4. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 457
5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 353
6. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 302
7. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 182
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. smeortan
9. ^ 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. 249
10. ^ a b Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 706
12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 705
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ 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