skera

Forms

skera (singular past indicative skar, plural past indicative skáru, past participle skorinn) (strong)^[1] Medieval runic skar “cut” on DR 200 from Ørsted, dated about 1150,^[2] and on Vg 219.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *skeraną (“to cut, shear”),^[1][4] a strong verb of the fourth class shared with Old English scieran, Old Frisian skera and Old High German skeran.^[4][5][6] Its relatives outside Germanic include Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “to cut, shear”), Old Irish scaraid (“separates”) and Lithuanian skirti (“to separate”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”).^[6][4][7] Kroonen reconstructs the verb with a laryngeal and calls its distribution European.^[4]

De Vries reports Jost Trier's view that the cutting was first that of branches trimmed for fence posts, and he gathers around the verb a large family of words for cuts, edges and cutting tools.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

IcePaHC dates its first record, skera and skorið in the Icelandic Homily Book, to 1150,^[8] and Larsson lists the verb from the same manuscript among the oldest Icelandic ones.^[9] The Danish runic inscription DR 200, from about 1150, uses it of carving a figure: Áskell í Garði skar Samson “Áskell in Garðr carved Samson”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Beside plain cutting, the verb meant slaughtering sheep and calves, cutting hair and clothes to shape, mowing a field and carving images, such as the Thor carved on a high-seat pillar.^[10][11] Set phrases took it further: skera upp herǫr “send round the war-arrow”, skera ór “decide”, skapa ok skera “have the say”.^[10][12] In skaldic verse ships “cut” the waves.^[13] In Vǫluspá the norns skáru á skíði, which Anne Holtsmark read as cutting notches in a stick to fix the length of a life.^[14]

It continues as Icelandic skera, Swedish skära and Danish skære.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1150 – skar on the runic inscription DR 200 from Ørsted.^[2]
• 1150 – skera and skorið in the Icelandic Homily Book, by IcePaHC's dating.^[8]
• 1200–1225 – scæra, scáro and scoret in AM 619 4to, skera in AM 677 4to.^[17][18]
• 1225–1250 – skar, skera and skoret in DG 8 II.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. to cut;^[10][20] skera e-n á háls to cut someone's throat.^[10][20]
2. to slaughter (sheep, calves, geese).^[10][20]
3. to cut to shape: hair, clothes.^[10][21]
4. to mow, reap; to cut turf.^[10][21]
5. to carve, engrave.^[10][22]
6. (poetic) of a ship: to cut through the waves.^[13][22]
7. skera upp herǫr: to send round the war-arrow;^[10] skera ór: to decide, settle.^[10]

Word family

• skurðr
• skor
• skæri
• skari

Descendants

• Icelandic skera^[1]
• Faroese skera^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk skjera^[1]
• Old Swedish skæra^[1]
• Swedish skära^[1]
• Danish skære^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål skjære^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. DR 200
3. ^ Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. Vg 219
4. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 443
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. skera
6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 338
7. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 490
8. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
9. ^ Larsson, Ludvig (1891), Ordförrådet i de älsta islänska handskrifterna, Lund: Ph. Lindstedt, p. 298
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. skera
11. ^ Möbius, Theodor (1866), Altnordisches Glossar, Leipzig: Teubner, p. 379
12. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 387
13. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 505
14. ^ Jóhannesson, Alexander (1956), Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, p. 835
15. ^ Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. skera
16. ^ Falk, Hjalmar; Torp, Alf (1910–1911), Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, p. s.v. skjære
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. DG 8 II
20. ^ a b c Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 544
21. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 549
22. ^ a b 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. skera