vafra

Forms

vafra (weak verb, past vafraða, past participle vafrat)^[1][2]

Etymology

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon derives it from Proto-Germanic *waƀarōn and compares Norwegian Nynorsk vavra (“to wander, drift about; to quiver”), Old Danish vavre (“to wander”), English waver and Middle High German waberen.^[3] He relates it to vaf, vafla and vefja (“to wrap”);^[3] Köbler, after de Vries, compares the same verb and vafrlogi.^[4] Jóhannesson puts it with that verb, “to totter”, under a root Proto-Indo-European *uebh- of unsteady to-and-fro movement.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb describes aimless movement to and fro.^[6][7] Cleasby–Vigfússon and Fritzner quote it of sea monsters, skrímsl þau er þar vafra í höfum umhverfis “the monsters that roam the seas round about”,^[7][8] and Fritzner of the mind, nema vér látum várt hjarta vafra um hégómliga hluti ok nytsemdarlausa “unless we let our heart wander over vain and useless things”.^[7] In verse it is said of an eagle circling, vafrar þú víðflogull “you hover, far-flying”.^[2][9]

In modern Icelandic vafra means to stumble or wander about, and to drift slowly back and forth, as sea ice does off the coast.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. to roam about, hover about, move unsteadily to and fro.^[1][6][8]
2. (poetic) to fly about, of an eagle.^[9][2]

Word family

• vafrlogi

Descendants

• Icelandic vafra^[10]

Related words

• vafla
• vefja
• vaf

References

1. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. vafra
2. ^ a b c Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 587
3. ^ a b Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. vafra
4. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. vafra
5. ^ Jóhannesson, Alexander (1956), Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, p. 131
6. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 691
7. ^ a b c Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. vafra
8. ^ a b Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 673
9. ^ a b Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 840
10. ^ a b Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 905