ǫl

Forms

ǫl n (genitive ǫls, dative ǫlvi, plural ǫl) (strong wa-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *alu (“ale, beer”),^[1] with a stem in -þ- beside it, which shows in the oblique case Old English ealoð of ealu.^[2][3] Other Germanic relatives are Old Saxon alofat (“drinking vessel”) and Middle Low German ale.^[4][3] Wiktionary allows that the Proto-Norse runic word ᚨᛚᚢ (alu) is the same word.^[1] The Baltic forms Lithuanian alus, Latvian alus and Old Prussian alu (“mead”) and Proto-Slavic *olъ may be borrowings from Germanic, and Finnish olut certainly is.^[4][2]

The further origin is uncertain.^[2] The word has been connected with Latin alūmen (“alum”), with “bitter drink” as the first sense.^[4][2][3] Polomé (1954) instead linked it with the runic charm-word “alu” and took “intoxicating drink” as the starting point, which de Vries finds the better of the two.^[4][2]

The noun is a wa-stem, with dative “ǫlvi” and genitive plural “ǫlva”.^[1][5] ǫldr (“drinking feast”) is a related formation.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

IcePaHC's first record is the First Grammatical Treatise, which it dates to 1150.^[6] Cleasby and Vigfússon quote from that work the saying eigi eru ǫl ǫll at einu, “not all ales are alike”.^[5] In Menota the word first appears in AM 383 I 4to, dated 1200–1300.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Cleasby and Vigfússon note that ǫl was the general name for any intoxicating drink and bjórr a South Germanic word, and quote Alvíssmál: ǫl heitir með mǫnnum en með ásum bjórr “it is called ale among men and beer among the gods”.^[5][8] From the drink the word came to mean a drinking feast, as in erfiǫl “funeral ale” and mælisǫl;^[9][5] Old Swedish øl had the same senses “drinking bout, banquet”.^[3] Since women served the cups at feasts, the poets made kennings for a woman such as ǫls eik “oak of ale”.^[5][10] The proverb ǫl er annarr maðr “ale is another man” is in several sagas.^[9]

The word continues as Icelandic öl, which in modern Icelandic also means a soft drink, and as Faroese øl, Swedish öl and Danish øl.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1150 – ǫl in the First Grammatical Treatise, by IcePaHC's dating.^[6]
• 1200–1300 – ǫl in AM 383 I 4to.^[7]
• 1320–1350 – ǫl and aul in the Egils saga of Möðruvallabók (AM 132 fol).^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. ale, beer; any intoxicating drink.^[12][5]
2. a drinking bout, a feast.^[9][13][8]

Word family

• ǫlbekkr
• ǫlbúð
• ǫlberi
• ǫldrukkinn
• erfiǫl
• mælisǫl
• ǫlvaðr

Descendants

• Icelandic öl^[1]
• Faroese øl^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk øl^[1]
• Old Swedish øl^[1]
• Swedish öl^[1]
• Old Danish øl^[1]
• Danish øl^[1]

Related words

• ǫldr

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. öl
3. ^ a b c d e f Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. öl
4. ^ a b c d e de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 686
5. ^ a b c d e f Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 763
6. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
7. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 383 I 4to
8. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 660
9. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. öl
10. ^ Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 619
11. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 132 fol
12. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. öl
13. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 808