vaða

Forms

vaða (singular past indicative óð, plural past indicative óðu, past participle vaðit) (strong)^[1] Present veð, past óð, later vóð, past participle vaðinn.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *wadaną (“to go, wade”),^[1][4] a strong verb shared with Old English wadan (“to go, wade”), Old Frisian wada, Middle Low German waden and Old High German watan.^[4][5]

Outside Germanic the usual comparison is Latin vādō (“to go, advance”), with vadum (“ford”) beside Old Norse vað (“ford”);^[4][6] Orel and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon add Old Armenian գամ (gam, “I come”),^[5][6] while de Vries counts it as a word shared only by Italic and Germanic.^[7] Kroonen notes that the Germanic present has the zero grade of the root, which Wiktionary writes Proto-Indo-European *weh₂dʰ-,^[1] and suggests that the Faroese sense “to wash up to” may keep an older “to flow”, from which “to wade” arose.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Larsson finds the infinitive in H and 645, among the oldest Icelandic manuscripts,^[8] and IcePaHC's first record is in the First Grammatical Treatise, which it dates 1150.^[9] The earliest dated manuscript in Menota is GKS 2365 4to of 1250–1300, in Vǫluspá, where the seeress sees wrongdoers wading heavy streams: sá þar vaþa þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok morþvarga “she saw there perjured men and murderers wading heavy streams”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

From wading through water the verb was used of snow, smoke and fire, and of going heavily, trudging.^[3][12] In fighting it means to rush forward or at someone, and láta vaða stein is to let a stone fly.^[3] Vaða uppi is to show above the water, and figuratively to be overbearing.^[3] It could also be said of words that occur in a text: ebresk orð vaða opt í latínunni “Hebrew words often occur in Latin”.^[13] In skaldic verse it is said of a ship sailing, conceived as an animal.^[14] From the verb come vað (“ford”) and a noun vaða “shoal of fish, seals or whales”.^[6]

It continues as Icelandic vaða, Faroese vaða, Norwegian Nynorsk vada, Swedish vada and Danish vade.^[6]

Timeline

• 1250–1300 – vaða, vaþa in Vǫluspá in GKS 2365 4to.^[10]
• 1275–1300 – present veðr and past óð in Holm perg 4 fol.^[15]
• 1320–1350 – óð, veðr and vaði in the Njáls saga text of AM 132 fol.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. to wade through water, snow, smoke or fire; to ford a river.^[3][2]
2. to go heavily, trudge; to rush forward or at someone;^[3][12] láta vaða stein to let a stone fly.^[3][12]
3. vaða uppi to show above the water; figuratively, to be overbearing.^[3]
4. to be current, to occur.^[17][13]

Word family

• vað
• vaðall
• vaðill

Descendants

• Icelandic vaða^[1]
• Faroese vaða^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk vada^[1]
• Old Swedish vaþa^[1]
• Swedish vada^[1]
• Old Danish vade^[1]
• Danish vade^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 673
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. vaða
4. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 564
5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 438
6. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. vaða
7. ^ de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 637
8. ^ Larsson, Ludvig (1891), Ordförrådet i de älsta islänska handskrifterna, Lund: Ph. Lindstedt, p. 347
9. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
10. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. GKS 2365 4to
11. ^ Gering, Hugo (1903), Vollständiges Wörterbuch zu den Liedern der Edda, Halle: Waisenhaus, p. col. 1083
12. ^ a b c Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 690
13. ^ a b Möbius, Theodor (1866), Altnordisches Glossar, Leipzig: Teubner, p. 485
14. ^ 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. vaða
15. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. Holm perg 4 fol
16. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 132 fol
17. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. vaða