ure

Forms

ūre (strong)^[1] Mercian ūr (the only form in the Vespasian Psalter gloss); Northumbrian ūser, ūsra.^[2] ūser, usser in poetry and Northumbrian, with ūssum once in the Pastoral Care.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *unsar, from Proto-Germanic *unseraz (“our”).^[3][1] The Proto-Germanic possessive is continued in Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍃𐌰𐍂 (unsar), Old Norse várr, Old Frisian ūse, Old Saxon ūsa and Old High German unsēr.^[3][5][6] Orel derives it from the stem *uns- of the pronoun Proto-Germanic *wīz (“we”) with a comparative suffix;^[5][6] Köbler traces it to the Indo-European pronoun *ne- "we".^[5][6]

Ringe and Taylor trace it through *ūsær to ūser, the form of the poetry and of Northumbrian, and then to ūre by a change of -Vser- to a long vowel with /r/, as in īsern > īren.^[3] Hogg and Fulk note that the genitive plural ūre has no parallel elsewhere in Germanic and is hard to explain from Proto-Germanic *unserō by regular sound change; they suggest it may come from the adjective's stem in unstressed use.^[7] The possessive ūre and the genitive plural of the pronoun "of us" have the same form.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in the Mercian gloss to the Vespasian Psalter, added in the mid-ninth century: Psalm 8 opens Dryhten dryhten ur over Latin “Domine dominus noster” “O Lord, our Lord”, with the endingless Mercian form.^[10][11][2] The West Saxon form is in the Pastoral Care of the 890s: ðonne we ures flæsces lustum ne libben “when we do not live by the lusts of our flesh”.^[12][11]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller list two uses of the form: the genitive plural of the first-person pronoun, "of us" (ūre ǣlc “each of us”), and the possessive adjective "our", declined as a strong adjective (ūres Drihtnes, ūrne).^[8][13] Clark Hall also gives the absolute use "ours".^[14] It renders Latin noster in the glosses, and the Lord's Prayer begins Fæder ūre.^[6][8] It is very common: over two thousand tokens in the corpus, in prose, poetry and glosses.^[11] In Beowulf both ūre and the older ūser occur.^[15]

The word lived on as Middle English oure, now English our.^[1][16]

Timeline

• s. ix med. – Dryhten dryhten ur “O Lord, our Lord” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[10][11]
• 890×897 – ures flæsces “of our flesh” in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[12][11]
• s. x² – in the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book.^[17][18][11]
• s. x/xi – ūre and ūserne in the Beowulf manuscript.^[15][19]

Meanings

Determiner

1. our, belonging to us.^[8][1][6]
2. (absolute) ours.^[14]

Descendants

• Middle English oure (→ English our; Scots oor; Scots wir)^[1]

Related words

• wē
• ūs

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 5.27
3. ^ a b c d Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 339
4. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 1143
5. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 435
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. ūser
7. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 5.25
8. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 1142
9. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 5.23
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d e f Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 230
14. ^ 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. 389
15. ^ a b Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. ūre
16. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ 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. 223
18. ^ 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. 704
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. 344