spretta

Forms

spretta strong verb (present sprett, past spratt, plural spruttum, past participle sprottinn); weak verb (past spretta, past participle sprett).^[1]

Etymology

The strong verb is inherited from Proto-Germanic *sprintaną (“to spring up”), which Orel and Köbler write *sprentan-.^[2][3][4] Its ⟨tt⟩ is from ⟨nt⟩ by assimilation, as in stuttr (“short”).^[5][6] The weak verb is its causative, Proto-Germanic *sprantijaną (“to make spring”).^[4][3]

Its relatives outside Norse are few: Middle High German sprenzen (“to shine in many colours; to sprinkle”) and Swedish dialect sprinta.^[4][6] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon takes *sprent- “to shoot up, move quickly” as a nasalised variant of a root *spret-, compares Lithuanian sprindỹs (“span”), and with Orel the Slavic verb for “to jump”.^[6][2] De Vries explains the senses from the spattering of clay on a wattle wall.^[4]

Cleasby and Vigfússon call it an iterative of springa.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

IcePaHC first records the strong past spratt in the Icelandic Homily Book, which it dates to 1150.^[8] Fritzner quotes the homilies for the sense “burst open”: the sea knew Christ, því at þat spratt eigi undan fótum hans “for it did not part beneath his feet”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The strong verb is used of water springing up, of a person starting to his feet or jumping off a horse, of a foot slipping, of a lock springing open, and of hair, grass and crops sprouting; a rumour too “springs up”.^[1][7][10] The weak verb means making something spring loose: undoing a girth or a belt, drawing a bolt, ripping a seam, splitting a bone with a knife.^[7][9] The laws use the weak verb of releasing a trap by day.^[11]

In Icelandic spretta has come to mean above all “to grow”, and the noun spretta “growth of grass” is from the nineteenth century.^[6] De Vries counts English dialect sprit and sprint and words in Shetland, Orkney and Manx among its loans.^[4]

Timeline

• 1150 – spratt in the Icelandic Homily Book, by IcePaHC's dating.^[8]
• 1200–1225 – sprettr in the manuscripts AM 619 4to and AM 677 4to.^[12][13]
• 1276–1300 – spretta in the law code of Magnus the Lawmender in Holm perg 34 4to.^[14]
• 1800s – Icelandic noun spretta “growth of plants”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (strong) to spring up, gush out, of water or sweat.^[1][7]
2. (strong) to start, jump: spretta á fœtr “to start to one's feet”, spretta af baki “to jump off a horse”; of a foot, to slip.^[1][10]
3. (strong) to sprout, grow, of hair, grass and crops.^[1][9]
4. (strong) to burst open, part.^[9]
5. (weak) to make spring loose, unfasten: a girth, a belt, a bolt.^[1][10]
6. (weak) to rip open, split, peel.^[1][7]

Word family

• uppspretta

Descendants

• Icelandic spretta^[6]
• Faroese spretta^[6]
• Norwegian Nynorsk spretta^[6]
• Swedish sprätta^[4]
• Danish sprætte^[6]

Related words

• springa
• sprund

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. spretta
2. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 366
3. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. spretta
4. ^ a b c d e f de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 538
5. ^ Noreen, Adolf (1923), Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik, 4th ed., Halle, p. § 266
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. spretta
7. ^ a b c d e Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 584
8. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
9. ^ a b c d Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. spretta
10. ^ a b c Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 592
11. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 599
12. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
13. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
14. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. Holm perg 34 4to