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klippa

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Etymology and origin of the Old Norse word klippa

Confidence
Disputed
First attested
1200 Icelandic Homily Book More words from the 12th century
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Old Norse klippa
English clip
From the same root
English clipper ← klippa
English clipboard ← clip

Forms

klippa (singular past indicative klipta, plural past indicative kliptu, past participle kliptr) (weak class 1 (long stem))[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.[2][3][1] Hellquist relates it to klýpa (“to pinch”), though the two belong to different ablaut series.[2][4] Others explain it as a blend: Jóhannesson of that verb with an unrecorded *knippa related to knífr (“knife”), and Falk and Torp, less convincingly in de Vries's judgement, of kippa (“to pull, jerk”) and the same verb.[2][5] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon doubts the blend and prefers a link with klípa (“to pinch”), with an original sense “to pinch apart”, the long ⟨pp⟩ perhaps being expressive.[3] The Gersum project cites the view that it is the Low German klippen (“to make a sharp sound”), transferred from the sound to the cutting, and Etymonline calls it probably echoic.[6][7]

The word stem is confined to the Norse languages;[3] English clip and Middle Low German klippink (“clipped fleece”) were taken from Norse.[3] The variant klyppa has ⟨y⟩, as in Nynorsk and Swedish dialect forms; it is unclear whether this is rounding before ⟨p⟩ or the influence of the verb for “pinch”.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

ONP's earliest dated citation is from the Icelandic Homily Book, dated 1200: Haɴ let clippa flóka af úlfꜵldom oc gera sér þar kyrtel ýr “he had felt clipped from camels and made himself a tunic of it”.[9] IcePaHC dates its text of the same book 1150.[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant to cut with shears or scissors: hair and nails, and the wool of sheep, so that klippa sauði was to shear sheep, a task the law names among the work allowed on a Wednesday.[9][11] ONP also records a sense “to pinch, take hold of”.[9] Most citations are in religious works.[9]

It continues as Icelandic klippa and in all the mainland languages.[3][1] Middle English clippen “to cut off, shear” is from Norse, the source of the English word clip “to cut”, recorded from c. 1200.[12][7][2]

Timeline

  • 1200 – clippa flóka “clip felt” in the Icelandic Homily Book, by ONP's dating.[9]
  • c. 1200 – English clip “to cut”, from the Norse word.[7]
  • 1250 – klippa savði “shear sheep” in the law text ONP cites as GrgKonᴵ.[9]
  • 1260–1290 – klippi in DG 4–7.[13]

Meanings

Verb

  1. to clip, cut with shears or scissors;[9][14][15] klippa hár (ok negl) to cut someone's hair (and nails).[9][14][15]
  2. to clip off;[9][11] klippa hár af e-m to cut the hair off someone.[9][11]
  3. to shear sheep: klippa sauði.[14][16]
  4. to pinch, take hold of.[9]

Word family

  • tvíklippa

Descendants

  • klyppa
  • klýpa
  • klípa

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 317
  3. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. klippa
  4. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. klippa
  5. ^ Jóhannesson, Alexander (1956), Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, p. 334
  6. ^ Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org, p. s.v. clypper
  7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. clip
  8. ^ Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. klyppa
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. klippa
  10. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
  11. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. klippa
  12. ^ 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. clippen
  13. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DG 4–7
  14. ^ a b c Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. klippa
  15. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 329
  16. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 343
Cite this entry

“Klippa.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/non/klippa. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

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