baggi

Forms

baggi m (weak n-stem)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is unknown.^[2] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compares Norwegian Nynorsk bagge (“pack; stout person, stocky animal”), the Swedish dialect word bagge (“ram, boy”), the English word bag and Middle Dutch bagghe (“piglet”).^[2] Similar words in Romance, such as French bagues (“packs”) and Medieval Latin baga (“bag, chest”), are probably themselves from Germanic.^[2] Torp compared Welsh beich (“burden”) and Spanish baga (“pack load”), and concluded that if the comparison holds, the Norse word was borrowed from Celtic.^[3] Köbler compares bǫggr.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

ONP's first dated record is from 1275, in Morkinskinna (ONP's OddMork), in the sense “pack, bundle”: oc er þar ál lꜹng vm baggann oc torsott at leysa “and there is a long strap round the pack, and it is hard to untie”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Beside the basic sense “bag, bundle, pack”, ONP records three uses of the word for a person, which it marks as pejorative, the first in 1312.^[4] Fritzner notes the word as a nickname in Norwegian charters,^[6] and Lind calls it a common byname in Norway, recorded from 1334.^[7] In Icelandic baggi still means “bundle, burden”, as in hafa hönd í bagga með e-m “to have a hand in someone's affairs”.^[8] English bag, recorded about 1200, is probably from the Norse word or a similar Scandinavian form.^[9]

Timeline

• 1275 – bagga, baggann in Morkinskinna.^[4][5]
• 1312 – baggi used disparagingly of a person (ONP's HákEirsp).^[4]
• 1325 – baggi “pack” in Snorri's Edda (ONP's SnE).^[4]
• 1330–1370 – bagga in Hallfreðar saga in the manuscript AM 132 fol.^[10]
• 1334 – Bagghe as a man's byname in a Norwegian charter.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. a bag, bundle, pack.^[4][11][12]
2. (pejorative) of a person.^[4]

Word family

• nestbaggi
• silkisbaggi
• tǫtrabaggi

Descendants

• Icelandic baggi^[8]
• Norwegian Nynorsk bagge^[2]
• Middle English bagge^[9]

Related words

• bǫggr

Usage notes

Baggi was a byname and occasionally a man's name in Norway and Sweden, and is found in Norwegian farm names.^[7][13] Swedish runic inscriptions have it as a name.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. baggi
2. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. baggi
3. ^ Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 218
4. ^ a b c d e f g Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. baggi
5. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
6. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. baggi
7. ^ a b c Lind, E. H. (1905–1915), Norsk-isländska dopnamn ock fingerade namn från medeltiden, Uppsala & Leipzig, p. col. 30
8. ^ a b Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 56
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 132 fol
11. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. baggi
12. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 38
13. ^ Rygh, Oluf (1901), Gamle Personnavne i norske Stedsnavne, Kristiania, p. 42
14. ^ Peterson, Lena (2007), Nordiskt runnamnslexikon, 5th ed., Uppsala: Institutet för språk och folkminnen, p. 39