Old Norse Words

A few Old Norse words are commonly used in our current speech. For example, take and skull come from Old Norse. Even give and get show Old Norse influence since their Old English forms used not /g/ but /j/; the change in consonant is due to influence from the Old Norse forms.

Some Anglishers see Old Norse words as foreign influence and so wish to use their equivalents passed down from Old English instead, whereas others are open to Old Norse words for a few different reasons, the main one being that they are still Germanic and thus do not conflict with Anglish's main goal. This page lists out New English equivalents that one can use however one wishes.

Note that some words are originally from Old English, but later became influenced in meaning by their Old Norse equivalents. For example, -ling was used in Old English, but its diminutive meaning was small. That its diminutive meaning rose in Middle English is generally thought to be due to Old Norse influence. Whether this influence is acceptable depends on one's tastes, but here, this use of -ling will not be treated as English.

There are a few different ways to come up with New English equivalents:


 * 1) Since English and Old Norse are both Germanic speeches, they naturally have cognates. For example, stoup has the Old English cognate stēap, and so we can use steap, the expected modernization of the Old English word.
 * 2) Some cognates also differ only on whether palatalization happened. For example, get is from the Old Norse word, since the expected reflex of the Old English cognate (which had undergone palatalization) would show /j/ instead of /g/. Hence, Germanic words having /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /j/, or non-initial /dʒ/ are very likely to be native, e.g., shirt, churl, yield, bridge.
 * 3) Sometimes, cognates later diverged in meaning. For example, skirt is the Old Norse cognate to shirt and meant the same thing as shirt, but when the word entered English, it later changed meaning, and so we cannot use shirt to replace skirt now.
 * 4) Some words have no cognates, one reason being that the Norse word was a Norse formation. For example, husband is a North Germanic formation and so is not found in West Germanic. In this case, a native equivalent, whether from Old English or from New English, must be sought after.
 * 5) Sometimes, there is no word, and unless one wants to make new words, one simply has to use multiple words to translate the Old Norse word. For example, gait can be replaced with the phrase way of walking, unless one wishes to make a new word such as walkwise.
 * 6) The usual techniques for making Anglish words apply. That is, we can bring back old words and maybe give them a new or extended meaning, or calque words from other Germanic speeches.

It should be noted that some words said to be of Norse root formally match what their English cognates would be if they had been naturally inherited from Proto-Germanic. A few examples:


 * The Proto-Germanic forebear of thrive would have yielded OE þrīfan, which would then have become thrive.
 * Sale entered Old English as sala through Norse; the native word would have been salu. Of course, both native salu and Norse sala would yield modern sale.

Only through consideration of other factors are these words said to be Norse borrowings (and even then, some scholars may think differently). Hence, these words are translated here with native equivalents.

Incidentally, the word Norse is not from Norse but from Dutch. A native equivalent that we can come up with is Northmannish, based on how we use Northman to mean Norseman.

Words not listed
Notably, the third-person plural pronouns currently used come from Old Norse and replaced the native set. For more information on what the native pronouns would now be, see here.

In general:


 * Norse words (originally) referring to Norse concepts such as hersir, berserk, and saga are generally deemed acceptable, since it is natural to borrow a foreign word to refer to a foreign thing.
 * Words historically related to the Danelaw such as wapentake and riding (as in administrative district) are also not translated here.
 * The same goes for place names that came from Old Norse or have Old Norse words, e.g., Slaithwaite, in which thwaite is from Old Norse.
 * Norse words that died off at some point in Middle English are not translated since this list is about translating modern Norse words.

In terms of derivation:


 * The OE word arwe (arrow) is sometimes seen as a Norse borrowing, since arwe is a relatively rare word in Old English (a more usual word for arrow was strǣl) and begins to be attested around the 11th century. However, it is attested in places where Norse influence would not normally be expected, and it is possible for OE earh (naturally inherited from Proto-Germanic) to have developed into arwe (showing natural loss of h).
 * The general word for bread in Old English was hlāf (which became loaf). That bread later became the main word to refer to the food may have been helped by the Norse cognate, but it should be noted that OE brēad (a rare word meaning piece) already had that meaning, and the same development of loaf and bread has occurred in the German cognates Laib and Brot. Presumably, the sense evolution went like this: piece > piece of bread > bread.
 * The etymology of gun is uncertain. One common etymology is that it was a shortening of Gunilda, the name of a specific ballista in Windsor Castle, and the name comes from the Norse name Gunnhildr. Since the word may have been gotten from a Norse name (and derivations from foreign names are commonly deemed acceptable), no attempt to substitute it is made here.
 * The use of main as an adjective meaning principal was at best strengthened by the Norse cognate; in Old English, it (as a noun meaning might, strength) was often used as the first element of compounds (to the point that it often was nothing more than an intensifier), and it is from this use that main began to be used as an adjective. It is easy to see how the original meaning of strong, mighty gradually shifted to principal.
 * Whoredom is traced back by some to Norse hórdómr, but it may as well be a native formation, as both whore and -dom are native, and -dom can be used to denote condition or domain, so it is deemed to be a native word.

In terms of phonetic development:


 * Some words show an unpalatalized form that have sometimes been attributed to Norse influence, but the form may have arisen from certain inflectional forms that naturally showed no palatalization.
 * seek - the usual form would be seech, as seen in the derivative beseech. However, seek can be gotten from OE sēcst and sēcþ.
 * like (as in alike) - the usual form would be lich, as seen in the related noun lich (corpse). However, like can be gotten from forms such as OE gelīcne and gelīcre.
 * mickle (dialectal word for large) - OE micel yielded ME muchel in certain dialects, which was then shortened to much. But mickle can be gotten from forms such as micles and miclum.
 * begin - the OE infinitive beginnan had /j/ and so would yield modern beyin. However, the past tense begann and the past participle begunnen showed no palatalization.
 * carve - the usual reflex of OE ceorfan would be cherve or charve. But the past plural curfon and the past participle corfen showed no palatalization.
 * dike - OE dīc (nominative singular) yielded ditch. But the OE plural was dīcas, which showed no palatalization; a similar distinction was present in OE geat and the plural gatu; the former had /j/, but the latter /g/, and it is from the latter that we get the modern form gate.
 * The verb lose is said to have come from OE losian, but the expected modern form would rhyme with nose. It is likely that it was influenced by loose, which is Norse and is similar in meaning. A less common theory for the current pronunciation is that it is from the OE verb lēosan (see here for more details).
 * The suffix -ly is said by some to have been due to influence from Norse -ligr, as OE -lic (with a palatalized consonant) became -lich in southern ME dialects. However, it is perfectly possible that ch was lost over time because the suffix was naturally unstressed, and this development can also be seen in every (ME everich). Hence, that the suffix became -ly is deemed here to have been a native development.
 * Root (as in turn up with the snout, rummage) is from OE wrōtan, but the expected spelling of the word is wroot (showing a historical /wr/ cluster). Of course, both words would sound the same now, but since words that originally had /wr/ still preserve it in their current spelling, it is said that the current spelling of root is likely from influence of the unrelated Norse borrowing root meaning part of a plant; the verb could be interpreted in some contexts to mean dig up by the roots. Hence, to undo this, one simply has to spell the native root as wroot.
 * The word Thursday (OE þunresdæg) may have been influenced by the Norse equivalent, but given that Wednesday shows loss of d, it seems likely that the n in the OE word would have been naturally lost over time, so Thursday is treated as a native contraction here.
 * The word yea is native, since it is from OE gēa, but the modern pronunciation is odd, as it would normally rhyme with sea. There are very few words that are spelled with , but are now pronounced with /eɪ/, e.g., great, break. It is very likely that the vowel in yea did not shift, because it was generally used alongside nay, which is from Norse. Hence, if it had not been for nay, it is likely that yea would have come to rhyme with sea instead of lay. Hence, if one wants to use an uninfluenced pronunciation of yea, one ought to have it rhyme with sea.

Standard Norse words
In this list, only one English word is given to replace the Norse word, but it should be kept in mind that there may be other English alternatives. Some alternatives may be listed in the Notes section.

Key:


 * PST - past tense
 * PTCP - past participle
 * OE - Old English
 * ME - Middle English
 * MED - Middle English Dictionary

Archaic or dialectal Norse words
The following is a list of archaic or dialectal Norse words.