haugr

Forms

haugr m (genitive haugs, plural haugar) (strong a-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *haugaz (“height, hill”),^[1] an adjective “high” turned into a noun.^[2] The adjective survives in Swedish hög, Danish høj and Nynorsk høg “high”,^[2] and is the variant by Verner's law of *hauhaz (“high”), the source of hár (“high”) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌷𐍃 (hauhs).^[3][2][4] Kroonen derives the variant from Proto-Indo-European *kouk-ó- and compares Lithuanian kaũkas (“bump”).^[3]

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon and de Vries compare Middle High German houc (“hill”) and hoger (“hump”), and German Hügel (“hill”).^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is on the Karlevi stone, Öl 1, which Rundata dates to the late tenth century: of the dead chieftain it says folginn liggr ... draugr í þessu haugi “the warrior lies hidden in this mound”, cut in runes as i : þaimsi · huki.^[5] A Danish stone of the Jelling period, DR 143, says of a man and his mother Þau liggja bæði í þeim haugi “they both lie in that mound”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Finnur Jónsson notes that in the poems it is often unclear whether a natural hill or a grave mound is meant.^[7] A farmer would sit on a mound near his house to look over his land,^[8][9] and the grave mound gave phrases such as verpa haug “to raise a mound”, leggja í haug “to bury in a mound” and brjóta haug “to break into a mound”.^[10] The Norwegian laws punish robbing mounds, and reckon descent til haugs ok til heiðni, back to the mound and the heathen age.^[11][12] A second sense, a heap and especially a dunghill, is less common.^[10][8]

It continues as Icelandic haugur, Faroese heygur, Norwegian Nynorsk haug, Swedish hög and Danish høj.^[2] It was borrowed into Middle English as hogh, English dialect how,^[4][13] and into Norman French as hogue;^[4] the Middle English Dictionary derives Middle English hoge from Old French and Medieval Latin, ultimately from Norse.^[14] De Vries reports a proposed loan into Finnish and Estonian, which Collinder doubts.^[4]

Timeline

• 950–1000 – í þessu haugi “in this mound” on the Karlevi stone Öl 1, late tenth century by Rundata's dating.^[5]
• 1200 – the compound grióthaug “cairn” in Steph15, by ONP's dating.^[10]
• 1225 – í hauginom of a king's burial in Ágr.^[10]
• 1225–1250 – haugr, haugs and hauginum in DG 8 II.^[15]
• 1250 – the sense “dunghill” in GrgKon, by ONP's dating.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. a mound or hillock, natural or raised by people.^[10][16][7]
2. a grave mound, barrow, cairn.^[10][16][8]
3. a heap, pile; a dunghill.^[10][17][8]

Word family

• haugbúi
• heygja
• grjóthaugr
• moldhaugr
• ættarhaugr
• óðalshaugr
• mykjuhaugr
• sorphaugr
• blóthaugr
• haugsbrot

Descendants

• Icelandic haugur^[1]
• Faroese heyggjur^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk haug^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål haug^[1]
• Old Swedish høgher^[1]
• Swedish hög^[1]
• Danish høj^[1]
• Middle English hoge^[1]

Related words

• hár

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. haugur
3. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 215
4. ^ a b c d e de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 213
5. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. Öl 1
6. ^ Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. DR 143
7. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 231
8. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 241
9. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. haugr
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. haugr
11. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 268
12. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 149
13. ^ Björkman, Erik (1900–1902), Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English, 2 vols, Halle: Niemeyer (Studien zur englischen Philologie 7, 11), p. 70
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DG 8 II
16. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. haugr
17. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 236