biliþ
Old English
editEtymology
editThis is a ghost word resulting from a misinterpretation of the spelling biliðe in the Old English Daniel poem as it appears in the Junius Manuscript, folio 187; the ultimate origin of which appears to be Edward Lye's Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum.[1] However, the spelling is most likely actually a corruption of blīþe (“happy”),[2] as part of the phrase "Blīþe wǣron eorlas Ebrēa" ("Happy were the Hebrew men"). The extra vowel may have been from association with bilewit, although there are no other such examples for this root. Despite its prevalance in the continental West Germanic languages, it would appear that neither Proto-West Germanic *biliþī nor any of its derivatives survived into Old English.
Noun
editbiliþ ?
References
edit- ^ Lye, Edward (1772), Dictionarium Saxonico Et Gothico-Latinum: Accedunt Fragmenta Versionis Ulphilanae, necnon Opuscula quaedam Anglo-Saxonica, Volume 1, https://books.google.com/books/about/Dictionarium_Saxonico_Et_Gothico_Latinum.html?id=KzZLAAAAcAAJ, page 68
- ^ Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey, editors (2018), “bliþe adj”, in Dictionary of Old English: A to I
[1], Toronto: University of Toronto, →OCLC.
- Thorpe, Benjamin (1832), Caedmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures; With an English Translation, Notes, and a Verbal Index, https://books.google.com/books/about/Caedmon_s_Metrical_Paraphrase_of_Parts_o.html?id=_PoFAAAAQAAJ, page 232
- Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “biliþ”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.