drit

Forms

drit n^[1][2] ONP records the spellings dʀith, drijt and driti.^[3]

Etymology

It is a noun from Old Norse dríta (“to defecate”).^[4][2] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compares the nouns Faroese drit and Norwegian Nynorsk drit and Old English drit.^[4]

The verb continues Proto-Germanic *drītaną (“to defecate”),^[5][6] with Old English drītan and Old High German trīzan.^[7][4] Köbler and Wiktionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *dʰreyd- (“to have diarrhoea”);^[6][8] Orel notes that Lithuanian trīesti (“to have diarrhoea”) is similar but does not agree in its sounds.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

IcePaHC's first token is driti in the text it dates 1350 and calls MARTA.^[9] ONP's first dated citation, of 1362, describes the fabulous beast bonachus: Þetta olma dyr Bonachum er sva illrar natturu, at þat verpr af ser vellheitu driti “This furious beast, the bonachus, is of so evil a nature that it throws off scalding hot dung”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word is rare in the written record: ONP has three citations, from religious, historical and legendary texts.^[3] Zoëga and Cleasby–Vigfússon single out the droppings of birds, as in the compound fugladrit.^[1][2]

Middle English borrowed it as drit “excrement, dung; mud, earth”, which by metathesis became dirt in the 15th century.^[10][11][12] Icelandic has drit and a masculine dritur.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Middle English drit, borrowed from Old Norse.^[10]
• 1350 – driti in the text IcePaHC calls MARTA.^[9]
• 1362 – vellheitu driti “scalding hot dung”, ONP's first dated citation.^[3]
• 1462 – the byname dʀith (variant dritlioð), ONP's last citation.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. excrement, dung.^[3][14]
2. the droppings of birds.^[1][2]

Word family

• fugladrit
• dúfnadrit

Descendants

• Icelandic drit^[13]
• Middle English drit (→ English dirt)^[11][10]

Related words

• dreita
• dreitill

Usage notes

The word appears in nicknames such as Dritkinn and Dritloki and in place-names such as Dritsker and Dritvík.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. drit
2. ^ a b c d e Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 106
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. drit
4. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. dríta
5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 76
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 84
8. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
9. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. dirt
11. ^ 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), p. s.v. drit
12. ^ Björkman, Erik (1900–1902), Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English, 2 vols, Halle: Niemeyer (Studien zur englischen Philologie 7, 11), p. 235
13. ^ a b Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 142
14. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. drit