hvirfla

Forms

hvirfla (weak class 2)^[1] The one medieval record spells it huirla, and Fritzner prints it hvirla.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a verb from Old Norse hvirfill (“crown of the head; whorl”).^[4][1] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Germanic *hwirbilōną (“to whirl”), formed from *hwirbilaz (“circle, ring, whirl”), itself from *hwerbaną (“to turn”), the source of hverfa.^[1][5] The noun has a cognate in Old High German wirbil (“whirl, circle”).^[6][4] The same verb exists as Faroese hvirla, Nynorsk kvervla (“to spread hay to dry”) and German wirbeln (“to whirl”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

ONP has a single citation, dated 1391, from Flateyjarbók: toku þær þa til ok ætludu at huirla heyit en þat gek þeim æigi suo greitt sem þær ætludu “then they set to work and meant to turn the hay, but it did not go as easily for them as they had thought”.^[2][3] The women could not stir a single swath, with rake or hands.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The only Old Norse use is a farming term, to turn or spread mown hay so that it dries, as Fritzner, Baetke and Hægstad–Torp read it.^[3][7][8] Cleasby and Vigfússon and Zoëga give “to whirl”, the sense of the modern language, where the verb takes a dative object.^[9][10] Jón Þorkelsson records it in later Icelandic for objects whirled along by a stream.^[11]

Timeline

• 1391 – at huirla heyit “to turn the hay” in Flateyjarbók.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. to turn or spread mown hay so that it dries.^[2][7][12]
2. to whirl.^[10][9]

Descendants

• Icelandic hvirfla^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk kvervle^[1]

Related words

• hvirfill
• hverfa
• hvirfing

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. hvirfla
3. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. hvirfla
4. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. hvirfill
5. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 265
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 290
8. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 192
9. ^ a b Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 302
10. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. hvirfla
11. ^ Jón Þorkelsson (1890), Supplement til islandske Ordbøger, 3. Samling, Reykjavík, p. s.v. hvirfla
12. ^ Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Two Icelandic Stories: Hreiðars þáttr, Orms þáttr, Viking Society Text Series 4, London (glossary), p. 127