Editor's Corner

Yesterday, we had a little bit of history about the Vikings and Old Norse words that we use in English. Today I have the remainder of the article for you (minus most of the writer’s extra comments) from Daily Writing Tips:

Old Norse Words That Meant Something Slightly Different

English word, with original Old Norse meaning

• anger – trouble, affliction, which can make a person angry
• bait – snack, food eaten at work. Now means food used to catch fish, wild animals, and susceptible people.
• bask – similar to the Old Norse word meaning “to bathe”
• berserk – either from bear-shirt (frenzied warriors wearing a bearskin shirt) or bare-shirt (frenzied warriors wearing no shirt)
• blunder – to shut one’s eyes; to stumble about blindly
• bulk – partition; cargo, as in the nautical term bulkhead
• crawl – to claw
• gang – any group of men, as in modern Danish, not necessarily dangerous
• gawk – to heed, as in paying too much attention
• gift – dowry, a kind of wedding gift. In modern Danish, gift means wedding.
• haggle – to chop
• hap, happy – chance, good luck, fate
• lake – to play
• litmus – from the Old Norse words litr (dye) and mosi (moss), used as a chemical test for acidity and alkalinity
• muck – cow dung. An English dairy farmer may say he needs to muck out, or clean, his barn.
• muggy – drizzle, mist. Today it means severely humid.
• rive – to scratch, plow, tear. A poet might write about his heart being riven in two.
• scathe – to hurt, injure. Only the opposite word, unscathed, is common.
• seem – to conform
• skill – distinction
• sleuth – trail
• snub – to curse
• sprint – to jump up, one of the keys to winning in a sprint
• stain – to paint
• stammer – to hinder; to dam up, as in a flow of words
• steak – to fry
• thrift – prosperity. If you have thrift, perhaps prosperity will follow.
• thwart – across, which has kept a similar meaning for sailors
• window – “wind-eye” or in Old Norse, vindauga

Norse Alphabet

Kara Church

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