slyngva

Forms

slyngva (present slyng, past slǫng, past plural slungum, past participle slunginn), also slyngja^[1][2]

Etymology

It is a strong verb, inherited from Proto-Germanic *slingwaną (“to swing, sling; to wind”).^[3][4] Torp takes the ⟨v⟩ as a present-stem formant.^[5] Its West Germanic cognates mean “to wind, creep”: Old English slingan, Middle Low German slingen and Old High German slingan.^[6][7][4] Outside Germanic de Vries and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compare Lithuanian slinkti (“to creep”),^[6][4] and Köbler sets up the root Proto-Indo-European *slenk- (“to wind, twist, creep”).^[8]

Old French eslinguer (“to sling”) was borrowed from it,^[6] and Torp and Holthausen think the sense “to throw” of English sling came from Norse.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

The strong verb is defective and mostly poetic; in prose the weak verb slǫngva replaced it, and only the past participle slunginn lived on.^[9] In the Edda it means to swing or hurl: slǫng upp við rá rauðum skildi “hoisted a red shield up to the yard” in the first poem of Helgi Hundingsbani, and sungu ok slungu snúðga steini “they sang and swung the swift millstone” in Grottasǫngr.^[2][10] The participle has the sense “wreathed, sprinkled”: dǫggu slunginn “bedewed”, slunginn vafrloga “ringed with flickering flame”.^[1][11]

From “to swing, throw” came “to set up” (slyngva landtjǫldum “to pitch tents”) and, from “to wind”, “to twist, plait”, with figurative uses such as var þessu kaupi slungit “the bargain was struck” and í vandkvæði er slungit “we are in a fix”.^[12][2] Modern Icelandic slyngja means to fling and to plait.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (with dative) to sling, fling, hurl.^[1][12][13]
2. to swing, set in rapid motion, as a millstone.^[13][11]
3. to pitch (tents).^[12][2]
4. to twist, wind, plait; figuratively, to conclude (a bargain).^[12][2]
5. (past participle slunginn) wreathed, encircled, sprinkled.^[1][11]

Descendants

• Icelandic slyngja^[4]
• Norwegian Nynorsk slyngja^[4]
• Swedish slunga^[4]
• Danish slynge^[4]

Related words

• slǫngva
• slanga
• slyngr
• Slungnir

References

1. ^ a b c d Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. slyngva
2. ^ a b c d e Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. slyngva
3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. slyngja
5. ^ a b Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 536
6. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 518
7. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. slingan
9. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 569
10. ^ Neckel, Gustav (1927), Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius, vol. 2: Kommentierendes Glossar, Heidelberg, p. 154
11. ^ a b c Gering, Hugo (1915), Glossar zu den Liedern der Edda, 4th ed., Paderborn, p. 163
12. ^ a b c d Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 577
13. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 520