snara

Forms

snara f (genitive snǫru, plural snǫrur)^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *snarhǭ (“noose, loop”),^[3][4] through a Proto-Norse stage, written ⟨*snarhōn⟩ by de Vries and Köbler.^[5][6] Its cognates are Old English sneare (“noose, snare”), Middle Low German snare (“string”) and Old High German snaraha (“noose, string”).^[5][7][4]

The noun belongs to a Germanic verb meaning “to twist, tie”, seen in the strong verb Old High German snerhan (“to tie, draw together”).^[4][5][7] De Vries, Torp and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon trace it to Proto-Indo-European *(s)nerk- (“to twist, draw together”), comparing Ancient Greek νάρκη (nárkē, “numbness, cramp”);^[5][4][7] Wiktionary reports that Orel treats the Germanic group as isolated.^[3] The verb snarr “quick” is of the same family.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Menota first dates the noun in the Norwegian manuscript AM 619 4to and in AM 677 4to, both of 1200–1225, with the forms snǫru, snarum and snarna.^[8][9] The sense in the early religious texts is the snare or trap, often the snares the devil lays for souls.^[10][1]

Semantic evolution

The word means a noose or snare for catching animals, and figuratively any trap: leggja snǫrur fyrir e-n “to lay snares for someone”.^[2][10] Religious texts speak of the snares the devil sets for mankind.^[10] From the noose it came to mean the hangman's halter, as in dœma e-n til snǫru “to sentence someone to the rope”.^[1][2] A passage of the Gulathing law, nú ferr maðr sjalfr í snǫru, Fritzner reads as a snare, while Hertzberg takes it as the rope by which men were let down cliffs to gather hay, eggs and feathers.^[10][11]

The noun lives on as Icelandic snara and Swedish snara.^[7][5] English snare comes from late Old English and also from a Scandinavian source such as this word.^[12]

Timeline

• 1200–1225 – snǫru and snarum in the Norwegian manuscript AM 619 4to.^[8]
• 1200–1225 – snǫru and snarna in the manuscript AM 677 4to.^[9]
• 1225–1250 – snaruna in the manuscript DG 8 II.^[13]
• 1260 – snöru in Jómsvíkinga saga, by IcePaHC's dating.^[14]
• 1270–1290 – snǫrur in the manuscript AM 519 a 4to.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. a snare, noose or trap; figuratively, a snare laid for someone.^[2][10][16]
2. a halter, the hangman's rope.^[2][1][17]
3. a cord or rope.^[16][11]

Descendants

• Icelandic snara^[7]
• Faroese snara^[7]
• Norwegian Nynorsk snare^[7]
• Swedish snara^[7]
• Danish snare^[7]

Related words

• snarr
• snerkja

Usage notes

The same spelling is also the verb snara “to twist, turn quickly; to fling”, formed to the same Germanic root.^[2][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 573
2. ^ a b c d e f Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. snara
3. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c d Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 521
5. ^ a b c d e f de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 522
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. snara
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. snara
8. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
9. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
10. ^ a b c d e Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. snara
11. ^ a b Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 594
12. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DG 8 II
14. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
15. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 519 a 4to
16. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 581
17. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 412