traust

Forms

traust n (genitive trausts)^[1][2] Early spellings include trꜹſt, travſt and trauſt, and a late trost.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *traustą (“shelter, help, confidence”),^[6][7] a neuter noun made from the adjective *traustaz (“firm, reliable”), which also gave traustr.^[7][8] The noun has cognates in Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌰𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌹 (trausti, “covenant, alliance”), Old Frisian trāst (“help, comfort”), Old Saxon trōst (“comfort”) and Old High German trōst (“comfort, help, confidence”).^{[9][10][11][12]}

Kroonen derives the adjective from a pre-form *drou(H)-sd-o- and compares Old Irish druit (“close, firm, trustworthy”), whose second element he takes as the zero grade of the root “to sit”; he calls the root plainly related to that of trúa.^[8] Orel gives *drou-stHo- “firm” and adds a Persian adjective for “hard, strong”, after Osthoff.^[7] Köbler and the Indo-European lexicons place the family under Proto-Indo-European *deru- (“firm, solid; tree”), the root of tré.^[10][13] De Vries follows Benveniste in that, and adds that the sense of help would then have grown out of the idea of a ring of men or a fence.^[9]

Cleasby and Vigfússon took the word as a formation from the same verb with an ending ⟨-st⟩;^[14] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon sets it beside the ablauting Middle High German trūst and the Old Low Franconian form behind the English word trust.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Menota first records the noun in two Old Norwegian and Icelandic manuscripts dated 1200–1225, AM 619 4to and AM 677 4to, with the spellings trauſt, trꜹſt and travſti.^[16][3] Larsson also lists it from several of the oldest Icelandic manuscripts,^[5] and IcePaHC, which dates the text of the Icelandic Homily Book to 1150, has it there.^[17] In the sagas the first sense is the help and protection a powerful man gives: hingat em ek kominn at sœkja heilræði at þér ok traust “I have come here to seek good counsel and support from you”.^[18][14]

Semantic evolution

Cleasby and Vigfússon and Fritzner set the concrete sense first: something one can rely on, a protector's support, a safe shelter; from it came “firmness, confidence”, and the phrase hafa or bera traust til “to dare”.^[14][19][18] Baetke orders the two the other way, with trust and confidence first and help, backing and safety second.^[20] In the Norwegian laws and charters the word is used of a king's protection and of security.^[21]

It survives as Icelandic traust and Faroese treyst, while Swedish and Danish took their words from German.^[15] De Vries, after Björkman, takes the English word trust from Norse,^[9] and Etymonline calls the Norse source probable, with a first record about 1200.^[22]

Timeline

• 1200–1225 – trauſt and trꜹſt in the manuscripts AM 619 4to and AM 677 4to.^[16][3]
• c. 1200 – the English noun trust, probably from the Norse word.^[22]
• 1265 – traust in a Norwegian charter.^[2]
• 1320–1350 – traust and trausts in the sagas of the manuscript AM 132 fol.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. help, protection, support; also the power to give it.^[18][14][24]
2. firmness, confidence;^[18][20] hafa traust til “to dare, venture”.^[18][20]
3. something to be relied on, security, shelter.^[24][19]

Word family

• traustlauss

Descendants

• Icelandic traust^[15]
• Faroese treyst^[15]
• English trust^[9][22]

Related words

• traustr
• treysta
• trúa
• trúr
• tryggr

Usage notes

The adjective traustr gave the man's name Trausti, and -trausti ends some bynames.^[15][9]

References

1. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. traust
2. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DN 2:12
3. ^ a b c Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
4. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. Holm perg 4 fol
5. ^ a b Larsson, Ludvig (1891), Ordförrådet i de älsta islänska handskrifterna, Lund: Ph. Lindstedt, p. 332
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 409
8. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 521
9. ^ a b c d e de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 596
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ Slocum, Jonathan, ed., Indo-European Lexicon (after Pokorny), Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
14. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 639
15. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. traust
16. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
17. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
18. ^ a b c d e Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. traust
19. ^ a b Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. traust
20. ^ a b c Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 661
21. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 648
22. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
23. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 132 fol
24. ^ a b 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. traust