bikarr

Forms

bikarr m (genitive bikars, plural bikrar) (strong a-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Saxon bikeri (“beaker”), the Old Saxon and Old Low German word, in Fischer's account, beside Middle Low German bēker,^[2] and de Vries likewise takes the West Norse word from the Old Saxon one.^[3] Wiktionary instead gives the Middle Low German form as the immediate source.^[1] De Vries separates the later mainland forms, Old Swedish bekare and Swedish bägare, which came from the Middle Low German word.^[3]

The Germanic word goes back to Medieval Latin bicarium,^[2][4] which de Vries explains as a dissimilated form of bacarium, a derivative of Latin bacar (“wine vessel”).^[3] Jóhannesson also traces the Old Saxon word and Old High German behhari to a Vulgar Latin derivative of the same Latin noun.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

ONP's first dated citation is a Norwegian charter of 1342, where the word is a byname, Jonn bikar;^[6][7] Fritzner also lists it as a nickname.^[6][7] As the name of a vessel it is first dated in 1357: fá mér einn bikar með oleum “fetch me a beaker of oil”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

De Vries calls the word a late one in Old Norse,^[3] and ONP's citations run from the fourteenth century, most of them in religious works, with others in legendary sagas and charters.^[6] It formed the compounds glerbikarr, silfrbikarr and sáttarbikarr.^[6][8]

Modern Icelandic, Faroese and Nynorsk keep it as bikar.^[3] Finnish pikari and Estonian peker are late loans from Scandinavian.^[3] Etymonline derives English beaker from Old Norse bikarr or from Middle Dutch beker,^[9] while the MED takes Middle English biker from Medieval Latin and beaker from Middle Dutch.^[10]

Timeline

• 1342 – Jonn bikar, a byname, in a Norwegian charter.^[6]
• 1357 – einn bikar með oleum, the first dated record as the name of a vessel.^[6]
• 1387 – bikar twice in the manuscript Holm perg 16 4°.^[6]
• 1396 – bikar in an Icelandic charter.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. a beaker, a large drinking cup.^[8][6][11]

Word family

• glerbikarr
• silfrbikarr
• sáttarbikarr

Descendants

• Icelandic bikar^[1]
• Faroese bikar^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk bikar^[1]
• Middle English biker^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Fischer, Frank (1909), Die Lehnwörter des Altwestnordischen, Palaestra 85, Berlin, p. 57
3. ^ a b c d e f de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 36
4. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. bägare
5. ^ Jóhannesson, Alexander (1956), Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, p. 951
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. bikarr
7. ^ a b Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. bikarr
8. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. bikarr
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. beaker
10. ^ 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), p. s.v. biker
11. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 62