heill

Forms

heill^[1] Old Norwegian hæill beside Old Icelandic heill.^[2] Runic hæil on the rune-stick N B380 from Bergen,^[3] and dative plural hailum on the Swedish inscription U NOR2000;27A.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, sound”),^[5][1] the adjective also behind Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌻𐍃 (hails, “healthy”), Old English hāl, Old Frisian hēl, Old Saxon hēl and Old High German heil.^[5][6] Gothic also has 𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌻𐍃 (gahails, “whole, unharmed”).^[7]

Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ilos (“healthy, whole”).^[1] Kroonen sets up an o-grade *koi-lo- and compares Proto-Slavic *cělъ (“whole”) and Old Prussian kailūstiskan (“health”), but rejects a link with Latin caelum (“sky”) and Welsh coel (“belief, omen”).^[5] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon suggests instead that it may share a root with caelebs (“unmarried”) and Latvian kails (“lone, childless”), from a word for “one”, with a development “single” > “whole” > “healthy”.^[7]

The Proto-Norse diphthong /ai/ became /æi/, which Old Norwegian kept, while Old Icelandic turned it into /ei/: hence Norwegian “hæill” beside Icelandic “heill”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The rune-stick N B380 from Bergen, which Rundata dates to about 1185 and Menota to 1170–1198, opens with the greeting Heil(l) sé þú ok í hugum góðum “be you whole, and in good spirits”.^[3][8] The earliest dated manuscript record in ONP is from 1192, in the text it cites as EncCod1812, where the word is used of time: þat er vika hęil “that is a whole week”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

ONP puts first the sense “whole, intact, complete”, and, from “unharmed” the word came to mean “healthy” and, of a wound or illness, “healed”.^[9][10] Wishing someone health made it a word of greeting: kom heill “welcome”, far heill “farewell”, heill ok sæll, and njótið heilir handa “bless your hands, well done”.^[10][11] From the same idea come “blessed, happy” and “sincere, wholesome”, as in af heilum hug “sincerely” and heilt ráð “sound advice”.^[10] A woman who is eigi heil is pregnant.^[10][12] In the Norwegian laws it often means “complete, in full condition”, as in bæta at heilu “to restore to full condition”.^[13]

The word continues as Icelandic heill, Faroese heilur and Norwegian Nynorsk heil.^[7] Hellquist explains Swedish hel as properly the accusative, the regular match of the Norse nominative being the interjection hell.^[14] De Vries traces Middle English heil and English hale “healthy” to the Norse adjective,^[15][16] and Etymonline derives the greeting hail from Old Norse or a similar Scandinavian source, in part also from Old English.^[17]

Timeline

• 1170–1198 – Heil(l) sé þú on the Bergen rune-stick N B380.^[8][3]
• 1192 – vika hęil “a whole week” in EncCod1812.^[9]
• 1200 – the sense “sound, healed” in the Icelandic Homily Book, by ONP's dating.^[9]
• 1200–1225 – hæill, hæilir and other forms with ⟨æi⟩ in AM 619 4to.^[18]
• c. 1200 – English hail as a greeting.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. whole, intact, complete, unbroken.^[9][10]
2. unharmed, healthy, sound; of a wound or illness, healed.^[10][12]
3. in greetings and good wishes, hail, well: kom heill “welcome”, far heill “farewell”.^[10][11]
4. blessed, happy.^[10]
5. sincere, upright; of advice, wholesome.^[10]
6. eigi heil, of a woman: pregnant.^[10][12]

Word family

• heilagr
• heilsa
• heila
• heilbrigðr
• heilindi
• alheill
• jafnheill
• óheill
• vanheill

Descendants

• Icelandic heill^[1]
• Faroese heilur^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk heil^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål heil^[1]
• Old Swedish hēl^[1]
• Swedish hel^[1]
• Old Danish hel^[1]
• Danish hel^[1]
• Middle English heyl (→ English hail)^[1]

Usage notes

The noun heill, feminine and neuter, “luck, omen”, has the same form;^[9] ONP and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon treat it as a separate word made from the same stem.^[9][7] It is common in illu heilli “in an evil hour” and in leita heilla “to seek omens” at a sacrifice.^[10][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Noreen, Adolf (1923), Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik, 4th ed., Halle, p. § 97
3. ^ a b c Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N B380
4. ^ Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. U NOR2000;27A
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 200
6. ^ Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, p. 267–268
7. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. heill
8. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. B 380
9. ^ 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. heill
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. heill
11. ^ a b Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 152
12. ^ a b c Faulkes, Anthony (2011), A New Introduction to Old Norse III: Glossary and Index of Names, 4th ed., London: Viking Society for Northern Research, p. s.v. heill
13. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 272
14. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. hel
15. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 218
16. ^ Björkman, Erik (1900–1902), Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English, 2 vols, Halle: Niemeyer (Studien zur englischen Philologie 7, 11), p. 44
17. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
18. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
19. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 240