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. e.g. were as a stand-in for husband.
 * 5) Sometimes, there is no word, so one may have to use multiple words to translate the Old Norse word.
 * 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
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 grammatical words:


 * 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.
 * It is sometimes said that she and the third-person singular present indicative ending -s may have come from Norse influence. For more, see here and here.
 * It is sometimes said that are, the plural present indicative of be, is a borrowing from Norse forms beginning with er-. It is true that in Middle English, the are form was used mainly in the northern dialects, and its use may have been strengthened by similar Norse forms. However, in Old English, there were inherited forms such as earun and arun, which were used mainly in the Anglian dialects; the form used in all dialects was sind(on), which would now be sind (rhyming with binned and generally pronounced with low stress). In other words, there is no need to replace are, but if one were to do so, one could do so with sind.
 * It is occasionally said that came, the past tense of come, had its roots in Norse kvam, as the original past tense in OE was cōm (which would now be coom). But there is reason to doubt this; not only is the earliest attestation of cam in an mid-12th century Kentish document, but in Middle English, cam(e) forms were also used mainly in the Midlands and the Southern dialects, which would be the opposite of what we would expect from a Norse borrowing. Rather, it seems that the cam(e) form arose from analogy with Class 4 and 5 strong verbs (see here for more about strong verbs).
 * The past tense and past participle form fled (fledde in Middle English) is sometimes attributed to Norse influence, since early examples of fledde are found in Middle English works with Norse influence. However, fledde is also attested early on in the Kentish dialect, which was a fairly conservative dialect, and the Middle English Dictionary traces fledde back to the past tense of fleien (a verb meaning put to flight) that was altered to become the past tense of ME flen (flee) because flen and flien (fly) were often confused with each other in the past tense and the past participle. This is a fairly plausible explanation since fleien was similar enough in meaning and was essentially the transitive equivalent of flen.

In terms of derivation:


 * 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.
 * Stint is occasionally said to have gotten its current meaning from Norse influence, as the OE word styntan meant make blunt, dull. However, the OE derivatives āstyntan and gestyntan also meant stop, and so the current meaning could have been due to a natural change in meaning, or was simply unattested in OE.
 * 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. Those forms are included in the list of Norse words, but the following words probably had no Norse influence.
 * 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. There is no known Norse cognate, so it is very likely that the transfer of /g/ to the infinitive was due to analogy.
 * 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. There is no known Norse cognate, so it is very likely that the transfer of /k/ to the infinitive was due to analogy.
 * gate - the usual reflex of OE geat would be yat (or yate with vowel lengthening). The plural of OE geat was gatu, which had /g/ instead of /j/. It is unlikely that the modern form is due to Norse gat; according to the OED, in Middle English, the y forms were universal in Northern, North-Midland, and West-Midland works (and were dominant in Southwestern works), which would be unexpected if gate were from Norse gat. Hence, gate is very likely from influence of the OE plural gatu.
 * Some scholars say that in the OE sequence ing, the g was palatalized because of the preceding i, so OE þing would have become thinge instead. Even if this is true, it seems that no modern word with /ɪndʒ/ can be traced back to an OE form with ing; in contrast, such modern words can be traced back to OE words with the sequence eng, e.g., OE sengan > singe, OE swengan > swinge. It is quite likely that the /g/ in thing was from the OE plural þing, which had not undergone palatalization since it was historically followed by u, which had blocked it from happening.
 * 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 obsolete native verb leese (see here for more details). In any case, if one wishes to be safe, one can simply pronounce lose such that it rhymes with nose or use leese (rhyming with freeze).
 * 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).
 * Root (as in turn up with the snout, rummage) is from OE wrōtan, but the expected spelling of the modern word would be wroot (showing the historical /wr/ cluster), even though both words would sound the same now. Since words that originally had /wr/ (which was lost in the standard speech in Early New English) still keep it in their current spelling, it is said that the current form 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 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, and 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.