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stakra

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Etymology and origin of the Old Norse word stakra

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1270–1290 AM 519 a 4to More words from the 13th century
Ultimate origin
Old Norse staka,-ra
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Old Norse stakra
English stagger

Forms

stakra (weak verb, past tense stakraði)[1][2]

Etymology

It is formed from Old Norse staka + -ra, an intensive verb to staka (“to stumble, stagger”).[3][4] Gersum reconstructs Proto-Germanic *stakrōjan- and connects the root of Old English staca (“stake”).[5] Related forms are Norwegian Nynorsk stakra (“to stagger”), Jutish stagre, Faroese stakra (“to totter”) and Low German stackern (“to walk heavily”).[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The only medieval record in Menota is stakraði in AM 519 a 4to (1270–1290).[2] Fritzner quotes the verb from the Alexanders saga: Athlas stakraði við, svá at hann fékk varla staðit undir byrði sínni “Atlas staggered, so that he could hardly stand under his burden”.[6]

Semantic evolution

Cleasby–Vigfússon give a first sense “to push”, from a skaldic line on a river current, and a second “to stagger”;[1][7][6][8] Zoëga, Fritzner and Baetke simply equate it with staka.[1][7][6][8] Icelandic stakra means “to stumble, stagger”.[4] Middle English borrowed it as stakeren (“to stagger, reel”), first recorded in the Cursor Mundi and used by Chaucer; altered, it became English stagger.[9][5][10]

Timeline

  • 1270–1290 – stakraði in AM 519 a 4to.[2]
  • 1300 – stakraði in the Alexanders saga, by IcePaHC's dating.[11]
  • early 14th century – Middle English stakeren.[10][5]
  • mid-15th century – English stagger, altered from stakeren.[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. to stagger, totter, stumble.[1][12][3]
  2. to push.[1]

Descendants

  • staka

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 587
  2. ^ a b c Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 519 a 4to
  3. ^ a b c d de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 542
  4. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. stakra
  5. ^ a b c Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
  6. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. stakra
  7. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. stakra
  8. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 596
  9. ^ a b 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)
  10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
  12. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 425
Cite this entry

“Stakra.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/non/stakra. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

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