bauta

Forms

bauta v (strong, past participle bautinn)^[1][2] Also weak: bautat and bautada in ONP's citations.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat, push”),^[5][6] a strong verb that survives as Old English bēatan (“to beat”) and Old High German bōzan (“to strike, crush”).^[1][7][8] Orel notes that some of the forms, the Norse ones among them, are weak.^[6]

Orel calls its further origin unknown.^[6] De Vries, Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon and Köbler connect a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to strike, push”), comparing Latin fūstis (“cudgel”), from an earlier *bʰūd-stis.^[1][9][10] Wiktionary reports Kroonen's view that it comes from earlier *bauttan-, with *-tt- by Kluge's law.^[5]

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon and de Vries relate beysta (“to beat”), beyta and beytill to it.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

ONP dates the verb first in 1275, in the sense “to jab with a spear”: Þórir hundr thrusts his spear into Bjǫrn the marshal and says Sva bꜹto ver biǫrnvna “So we strike the bears”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb is rare in the texts: ONP has four citations, all in the sense of jabbing or thrusting with a spear,^[3] and Zoëga glosses it “beat, chase?”.^[11] Cleasby and Vigfússon took bautinn as “beaten, slain” in the poetic compound sverðbautinn, and saw the verb in the giant's name Fárbauti “beater of ships” and the ship-name hylbauti.^[2]

The word for a memorial stone, bautasteinn (also bautaðarsteinn), is formed from it.^[4][1] De Vries gives two explanations: a stone driven into the ground, or a stone raised for a slain warrior.^[1]

Modern Icelandic bauta við means to toil at something, and Nynorsk bauta means to strain or to wade through deep snow.^[9]

Timeline

• 1275 – bꜹto “strike” in ONP's first citation.^[3]
• 1391 – bauta in the same scene in another manuscript.^[3]
• 1480 – the weak form bautað in IcePaHC's text of Jarlmanns saga.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. to beat or strike.^[13][1]
2. to jab or thrust (with a spear).^[3]
3. to hunt, chase.^[11][2]

Word family

• bautasteinn
• bauti
• Fárbauti

Descendants

• Icelandic bauta^[5]
• Norwegian Nynorsk bauta^[5]

Related words

• bysta
• beysta
• bausta
• bǫstl
• beyta
• beytill
• bauka

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 29
2. ^ a b c Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 54
3. ^ a b c d e f Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. bauta
4. ^ a b Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 26
5. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
6. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 40
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 18
8. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
9. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. bauta
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. bauta
12. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
13. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. bauta