garðr

Forms

garðr m (genitive garðs, plural garðar) (strong a-stem)^[1] Runic dative singular karþi on the Uppland stone U 170.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“enclosure, courtyard”),^[1][3] the source of Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌳𐍃 (gards, “house, household”), Old English ġeard (“enclosure, yard”), Old Saxon gard (“field, dwelling”) and Old High German gart (“enclosure, circle”).^[3][4][5] A weak noun of the same stem gave Old High German garto (“garden”) and the Norse garði “stall, pen”.^[3][6]

Kroonen derives it as an o-stem from the root Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- (“to enclose, encircle”), with Lithuanian gardas (“fold, pen”), Albanian gardh (“hedge, fence”) and, in another grade, Sanskrit गृह (gṛhá, “house”).^[3][1] He takes the meaning “circle” to be the original one, kept in the Faroese phrase for forming a ring of defenders.^[3] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon weighs this against a link with Latin hortus (“garden”) and Ancient Greek χόρτος (khórtos, “enclosure”), which need a palatal *ǵʰ-, and finds the Baltic comparison the likelier.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

On a Gotland runestone dated by Rundata to about 1100 the accusative appears as karþ.^[7] The first dated record in Old Norse proper is in ONP's homily fragment of 1150, in the sense “fence”: Garþr of kirkio merker varþvę́itcslo þessa allra goþra hlúta “the wall about the church signifies the keeping of all these good things”.^[8] Larsson lists it first in the fragment 237, among the oldest Icelandic manuscripts.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense was the fence or turf-and-stone wall marking a property, the commonest sense in the laws, with phrases such as innan garðs “inside the fence” and útan garðs “outside it”.^[8][10] From the fence it passed to what it enclosed: a yard, a hay-yard, a churchyard, and then the farm or homestead and its household.^[8][11] In Norway and the other mainland countries it came to mean a town house with its yard, as Danish and Swedish gård still do, while in Icelandic bær kept that place.^[8][11] The legal genre leads the record by far.^[8]

The word continues as Icelandic garður and Swedish gård.^[6][12] It was borrowed into Middle English as garth, a northern and western dialect word from the mid-14th century,^[13][14] and into Gaelic as gàrradh “dyke, wall, enclosure”.^[15] de Vries lists further loans in Irish, Welsh and Finnish.^[16]

Timeline

• 1150 – garþr “wall” in the homily fragment Hóm237.^[8]
• 1180 – garðr sa gilldr “that fence lawful” in the Gulathing law.^[8]
• 1200 – the sense “enclosure, courtyard” in the Icelandic Homily Book.^[8]
• 1200–1225 – garða, gǫrðum in the manuscripts AM 619 4to and AM 677 4to.^[17][18]
• 1207–1217 – gǫrðum in the Norwegian charter DN 1:3.^[19]
• mid-14th century – English garth, from the Norse noun.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. a fence or wall of turf or stone marking a property.^[8][20]
2. the enclosure round a haystack.^[8][11]
3. a fish trap.^[8][10]
4. an enclosure for trapping animals.^[8]
5. a ring or row of men.^[8][10]
6. an enclosed space, yard, courtyard.^[8][20]
7. a graveyard.^[8]
8. a farm, homestead, home or household.^[8][20]
9. the residence of a king, bishop or other office-holder.^[8]
10. (Norway) a town house with its yard and outbuildings.^[8][11]
11. the home as one's property or keeping, as in falla í e-s garð “to fall to one's share”.^[8][20]
12. a stronghold or castle.^[20]

Word family

• aldingarðr
• grasgarðr
• kirkjugarðr
• dýragarðr
• fiskigarðr
• stakkgarðr
• manngarðr
• garðbrot
• garðhlið
• garðshorn

Descendants

• Icelandic garður^[1]
• Faroese garður^[1]
• Norn gart^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk gard^[1]
• Old Swedish garþer^[1]
• Swedish gård^[1]
• Old Danish garth^[1]
• Danish gård^[1]
• Middle English garth (→ English garth)^[1][13]
• Middle Irish garrda^[1]
• Scottish Gaelic gàrradh^[1][15]
• Middle Welsh garð^[1]

Related words

• gerði
• girða
• garði

Usage notes

Garð- is also an element of personal names such as Garðarr and Þorgarðr, and of the name Garðaríki for Russia.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Peterson, Lena (2006), Svenskt runordsregister, 3rd rev. ed., Runrön 2, Uppsala: Institutionen för nordiska språk
3. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 169
4. ^ Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 124
5. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. garður
7. ^ Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. G 207
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. garðr
9. ^ Larsson, Ludvig (1891), Ordförrådet i de älsta islänska handskrifterna, Lund: Ph. Lindstedt, p. 107
10. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. garðr
11. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 191
12. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. gård
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ a b Cox, Richard A. V. (2024–2026), Old Norse Loan-Words in Scottish Gaelic, Clann Tuirc, richardavcox.scot/ONlwSG, p. s.v. gàrradh
16. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 156
17. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
18. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
19. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DN 1:3
20. ^ a b c d e Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. garðr