weorc

Forms

weorc n (strong a-stem; genitive singular weorces)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *werk, from Proto-Germanic *werką (“work”).^[1][2] The noun is found in Old Norse verk, Old Frisian werk, Old Saxon werk and Old High German werah or werc.^[2][3] Kroonen explains it as a neuter beside the verb *wurkjan-, the source of Old English wyrċan, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *uerǵ-o-.^[2] Orel and Holthausen compare Ancient Greek ἔργον (érgon, “work”), and Orel adds Avestan varəz- (“to work”), all from the root Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to work”).^[3][4]

Köbler gives worc as a second form, and Wiktionary also lists werc, among others.^[5][1] Klaeber takes the sense “pain, distress” in the Beowulf poem from the Anglian noun wærċ (“pain”), which Bosworth and Toller treat as a masculine noun of its own.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded from the mid-ninth century: the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter has heofenas werc fingra ðinra “the heavens, the work of your fingers” over the Latin “caelos opera digitorum tuorum” of Psalm 8.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller order the senses from action itself (“God's will is operative”) through doing and the sum of a person's deeds to labour and employment, a single act, and what is made: a building, a fortress, a work of art.^[10] The laws pair word and weorc, what is said and what is done, and use the word for the work owed by a tenant.^[11] A last sense is pain and grief, weorce wesan “to be painful” in Beowulf, which Klaeber assigns to the Anglian noun wærċ.^[10][6] The prefixed noun ġeweorc is mostly what is built, an edifice or a fortification, a sense also found in the charter bounds.^[12][13] Köbler lists the Latin it glosses: opus, opera, labor, factum, actus, dolor and castellum.^[5]

The word lived on as Middle English werk, now English work; the pain sense has a separate Middle English entry, from wærc.^[14][15]

Timeline

• s. ix med. – werc fingra ðinra “the work of your fingers” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[8][9]
• s. x in. or xi¹ – þæs swiles & wærces “of the swelling and the pain” in the Old English Bede (Tanner 10).^[16][9]
• s. x med. – in Bald's Leechbook.^[17][9]
• s. x³/⁴ – in the Lindisfarne Gospels gloss.^[18][9]
• s. x/xi – weorc “deed” and “distress” in the Beowulf manuscript.^[19][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. work, labour, toil; an occupation.^[10][12]
2. a deed, an act; what a person does, as opposed to words.^[10][11]
3. what is made: a structure, a fortification.^[10][5]
4. pain, affliction, distress.^[12][6]

Word family

• ġeweorc
• handweorc
• dæġweorc
• stānweorc
• æcerweorc
• weorcdæġ
• weorchūs
• weorcstān
• weorcsum
• weorcþēow

Descendants

• Middle English werk (→ English work; Middle Scots wark; Middle Scots werk)^[1]

Related words

• handġeweorc
• wyrċan
• wyrhta

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 580
3. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 456
4. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 390
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. weorc
6. ^ a b c d 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. weorc
7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 1157
8. ^ 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
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 1191
11. ^ a b Liebermann, F. (1906), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. II.1: Wörterbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 238
12. ^ a b c Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 403
13. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
16. ^ 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. 531
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. 412
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. 291
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