blóm

Forms

blóm n^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”),^[1] a noun made with an *-m-* suffix to the verb *blōaną (“to bloom”).^[2][3] The same noun is Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐍉𐌼𐌰 (blōma), recorded only in the accusative plural for “lilies”,^[4] Old English blōma, Old Saxon blōmo and Old High German bluomo.^[5][2] Old Norse has it as the weak masculine blómi beside this neuter noun, which Torp describes as a collective.^[6][7]

The verb behind it survives in blōwan (“to bloom”) and bluojan, but Old Norse has no trace of it.^[7][8] The root, Proto-Indo-European *bʰlō- (“to bloom, thrive”), is also behind Latin flōs (“flower”), flōreō (“to bloom”) and Middle Irish bláth (“blossom”); de Vries notes that it is found only in Italic, Celtic and Germanic.^[7][9] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon puts it with blað (“leaf”) and blóð (“blood”) under a root meaning “swell, grow, thrive”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Menota first lemmatises the noun as blóm in the Norwegian manuscript AM 619 4to, dated 1200–1225.^[10] ONP's first dated citation is from 1270, in the sense “flowers, blossom”: er gefr uiðinum láuf oc blom oc alldin “who gives the tree leaf and blossom and fruit”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

As a collective the word named the flowers and leaves that show a plant is thriving, and hence the fruit itself;^[12] Fritzner quotes Christ called the blóm of the Virgin's womb.^[12] The figurative sense “crowning glory, beauty, splendour” is ONP's second, used also of eloquence and of an outstanding deed.^[11] In religious poetry blóm praises the Virgin Mary, the saints and Bishop Guðmundr.^[13][14] ONP's genre table shows it mostly in religious works and romances, and its record often cannot be told apart from blómi.^[11]

The word lives on as Icelandic blóm, where the sense “egg yolk” is probably a semantic loan from Danish.^[9] Middle English took blom from Norse, either from this noun or from blómi, and it became the English word bloom.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1200–1225 – blóm in the Norwegian manuscript AM 619 4to.^[10]
• 1270 – blom in the sense “blossom” in ElisA, ONP's first dated citation.^[11]
• 1300 – first dated citation of the figurative sense “glory, splendour”, in Thom¹.^[11]
• 1525 – blóma and blóminn in Georgius, by IcePaHC's dating.^[17]
• c. 1200 – the English bloom, from a Norse source, first recorded as a northern word.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. (collective) flowers, blossom, a flowering plant; blossoming.^[11][19][8]
2. (figurative) fruit, the produce of a plant or womb.^[12][13]
3. (figurative) the height or crowning glory of something; beauty, magnificence, eloquence.^[11][20]
4. (poetic, Christian) a person of outstanding holiness, said of the Virgin Mary and the saints.^[13][14]

Word family

• blóma
• blómga
• blómstr
• jarðarblóm
• sumarsblóm
• jarteignablóm
• elskublóm

Descendants

• Icelandic blóm^[1]
• Faroese blóma^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk blom^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål blom^[1]
• Middle English blom^[16]
• English bloom^[15]

Related words

• blómi
• blað
• blóð

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 50
3. ^ Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 73
4. ^ Lehmann, Winfred P. (1986), A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist, Leiden: Brill, p. 104
5. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 28
6. ^ Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 288
7. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 45
8. ^ a b Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 70
9. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. blóm
10. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
11. ^ 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. blóm
12. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. blóm
13. ^ a b c Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 55
14. ^ a b Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 64
15. ^ a b Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org, p. s.v. blom
16. ^ a b 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)
17. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
18. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
19. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. blóm
20. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 58