slafra

Forms

slafra v (past slafraði)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain: Etymonline calls the verb probably imitative.^[2] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compares Faroese slavra (“to splash, dangle”) and Middle English slaveren, and relates it to Icelandic slabb and Icelandic slafsa;^[3] Jóhannesson puts it under the root of Icelandic lapa (“to hang slack”),^[4] and the UT IE Lexicon under Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European *lē̆b- (“lip; to hang down slackly”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

No medieval record is held: ONP stops before s, Menota has no lemma, and IcePaHC first has it in a text of 1985.^[6][7] Cleasby and Vigfússon give it as “to slaver, like a cow when grazing”,^[1] and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon dates the Icelandic verb to the 17th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In modern Icelandic slafra means to lap or slurp food up, to do something carelessly, and to chatter;^[3][8] slafra e-u af is to get something done with difficulty.^[3][8] The noun slafr “chatter” goes with it.^[3][1]

English slaver “to drool” is recorded from the early 14th century as Middle English slaveren;^[2][9] Etymonline derives it from slafra, and the MED calls it probably Norse.^[2][9]

Timeline

• early 14th century – Middle English slaveren “to drool”.^[2][9]
• 17th century – Icelandic slafra.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. to slaver; to lap up grass, as a cow does when grazing.^[1][8]

Word family

• slafr

Descendants

• Icelandic slafra^[3]
• Middle English slaveren (→ English slaver)^[2][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 566
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. slafra
4. ^ Jóhannesson, Alexander (1956), Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, p. 753
5. ^ Slocum, Jonathan, ed., Indo-European Lexicon (after Pokorny), Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
6. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0)
7. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
8. ^ a b c Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 749
9. ^ a b c d 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)