Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland Part I.pdf/92

LXXXIV

Many of the Norn words have from a more general root-meaning been developed in a specialized or individual sense not found in the mother tongue. Thus, certain words with root-meaning of scrapings, something diminutive or worthless, a grain, particle, are now used in sense of small shellfish, small mussels.

,, limpets, patella. fladra?, flake, splinter.  fliða [fli̇̄a], limpet;  fleda (flida), flake, splinter.

, testaceous animals,, small, worthless things.

,, stormy petrel, , only a small being.

in “craw-” and “”, small mussels. pile, grain; particle.

, small mussels, from skrap,  skrap, scraps.

A great number of words have had an opposite development; from originally denoting a single, definite object, they have acquired other somewhat vague meanings through the original sense becoming obscure and not understood.

, (from  barð,, brim; edge; beard) has been developed in in some meanings peculiar to this dialect. Used of bearded ear of corn, has doubtless been influenced by beard, in this sense. The compounds, , -claw, , (-),, are peculiar to  dialect.

and, , belgr,  ( skin of an animal taken off) which in  has been split into two forms with meanings.

As the ee,, eye, has for the most part superseded in the older *, *,  (from  auga, eye), so also has it inherited the various other meanings of *, *,. Thus is now also used for (1) a pool (in a Foula place-name (3) a peat-bank (=  eyga); (4) two lengths of twisted straw in a basket, in which sense  is still used in the
 * joga is preserved as the name of a pool); (2) a hollow or depression;

, (cat’s claw), now only as the name of a plant, has in  another meaning,  an entangled bundle or lump, in which it cannot easily be explained from (-), the name of a plant. the word in the Yell form has been understood as clew of thread.


 * cemetery, dead body.

Old Northern words in Shetlandic having developed specialized meanings:

,, , , a  o’ wind, (light) wind, breath of wind, ancient form. In, the word is only found with added s: blása,, blástr,