slakr

Forms

slakr adj (feminine slǫk, neuter slakt)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *slakaz (“slack”),^[2][3][4] like Old English slæc, Old Saxon slak (“slack, cowardly”) and Old High German slah.^[3][5]

Kroonen describes it as an o-grade adjective to a scarcely attested root and compares Ancient Greek λαγαρός (lagarós, “slack, thin”) and, with a query, Old Irish lacc (“slack”);^[3] Wiktionary sets up Proto-Indo-European *slogos and adds Latin laxus (“loose”), which Hellquist also names.^[2][6] Köbler gives Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European *slēg- (“slack, weary”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The only old record is in a stanza attributed to Bragi, in his Ragnarsdrápa on Þórr's fishing, preserved in Snorri's Edda: vaðr vilgi slakr “the line not at all slack”.^[7][1][8]

Semantic evolution

Old Norse has the word only in this verse, which Hægstad and Torp mark as poetic,^[9][10] but Cleasby and Vigfússon found it very frequent in the Icelandic of their day, with slá slǫku við “to slacken one's effort”.^[1] The Icelandic descendant slakur also means “weak, poor, inferior”.^[11][12] It continues as Swedish slak, first recorded in Old Swedish as a rendering of Latin discinctus.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. slack, lax, not tightly stretched (of a rope or line).^[1][2]
2. weak, not firm.^[2]

Word family

• slakna

Descendants

• Icelandic slakur^[2]
• Norwegian Bokmål slak^[2]
• Norwegian Nynorsk slak^[2]
• Swedish slak^[2]

Related words

• slókr

Usage notes

In Old Norse the word is confined to poetry, in Bragi's stanza.^[9][7]

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 f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 452
4. ^ Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ a b Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. slak
7. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 518
8. ^ 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. slakr
9. ^ a b Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 407
10. ^ Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 746
11. ^ Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. slakur
12. ^ Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 750