wrang

wrang¹ ship's hold

Pronunciation

• /wrɑnɡ/, [wrɑŋɡ]^[1]

Forms

wrang m (strong a-stem; genitive singular wranges, nominative plural wrangas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a ship's hold is probably borrowed from Old Norse vrǫng (“rib in a ship”), in the Old Norwegian form with initial v-.^[2][3] Durkin lists it, with the variant wranga, among the Norse words of seafaring that entered Old English.^[3] The Norse word is named after its curved shape, from rangr (“crooked”); Middle Low German wrange (“curved knee-timber”) and Alemannic rang (“bend”) are of the same root.^[4][2][5]

Orel sets the Old English word beside the Norse and Middle Low German ones under Proto-Germanic *wrangō, from the verb behind wringan, without calling it a loan, and Wiktionary takes it as inherited from Proto-West Germanic *wrang.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is known only from glosses: the Harley Glossary, in a manuscript of about 1000, has the form wrong, and a list of nautical words in the Antwerp–London glossaries, added in the early eleventh century, has wranga for Latin “cavernamen”.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller compare the Scots wrangis, the ribs or floor-timbers of a ship, and Icelandic röng, a rib in a ship: the cognates name the ship's timbers, while the Old English glosses use the word for the hold.^[9][11]

Timeline

• s. x/xi – wrong in the Harley Glossary (Harley 3376).^[7][9][10]
• s. xi in. or xi¹ – wranga for “cavernamen” in the Antwerp–London glossaries.^[8][9][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (glosses) the hold of a ship.^[9][12][2]

Descendants

• Middle English wrang^[1]

wrang² wrong, injustice

Pronunciation

• /wrɑnɡ/, [wrɑŋɡ]^[1]

Forms

wrang n (strong a-stem; genitive singular wranges)^[1]

Etymology

The word for wrong and injustice, with the adjective “rough, uneven”, is taken by Wiktionary as inherited from Proto-West Germanic *wrang, from Proto-Germanic *wrangaz (“twisted, crooked”), on the arguments of Pons-Sanz and Dance.^[1] Kroonen, Orel and Heidermanns list the Old English noun among the reflexes of the Proto-Germanic adjective, beside Old Norse rangr (“crooked, wry; wrong”), Middle Dutch wranc (“bitter, unfriendly”) and Middle Low German wrank (“sour, bitter”).^[13][6][14] Kroonen explains the adjective as an o-grade formation to the verb behind wringan.^[13] Köbler traces it to Proto-Indo-European *wrengʰ- (“to twist”), an extension of *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[12]

Holthausen, Sweet and Liebermann instead take the noun as a loan from the Norse adjective, Holthausen from its Old Norwegian form.^[2][15][16] The noun appears only late, in eleventh-century homilies and the Peterborough Chronicle, while the adjective in the bounds of a charter of 944 means “rough, uneven”.^[9][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun first appears in Napier's homily 42, printed among the Wulfstan homilies, in a manuscript of the first half of the eleventh century: unrihtdemen, ðe wendaþ wrang to rihte and riht to wrange “unjust judges, who turn wrong to right and right to wrong”.^[9][18][10] The adjective is in the bounds of a charter of 944 known from a thirteenth-century copy, on wrangan hylle “on the uneven hill”.^[19][17]

Semantic evolution

The Peterborough Chronicle, under 1134, says the king held his brother mid wrange “wrongfully” in captivity.^[9] In William I's charter for London the king will not allow any man to do the citizens ænig wrang “any wrong”.^[16][17] The charter's adjective is glossed “twisted” by LangScape and “rough, uneven” by Toller.^[20][17]

The word lived on as the Middle English adjective and noun wrong, now English wrong, whose sense “not right, unjust” Etymonline dates from about 1300.^[21][1]

Timeline

• 944 – the adjective in on wrangan hylle, in the bounds of a charter surviving in a copy of the early thirteenth century.^[19]
• s. xi¹ – wendaþ wrang to rihte in Napier's homily 42.^[18][9][10]
• 1134 – mid wrange in the Peterborough Chronicle.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. wrong, injustice.^[9][17][12]

Adjective

1. rough, uneven (of a hill).^[17][12]

Descendants

• Middle English wrong (→ English wrong; Scots wrang)^[1]