erchan
Old High German
Etymology
Apparently from Proto-Germanic *erknaz, thus cognate with π°πΉππΊπ½π (airkns, βholy, pure (of faith)β) and Old English eorcnanstan (βprecious stone, gemβ) (see eorcnan, erce). An archaic Germanic word from the sacral sphere, its original meaning is difficult to reconstruct as it belonged to the pagan religious vocabulary obscured after Christianization.
Pokorny (1959) tentatively groups the word with Proto-Indo-European *hβerΗ΅- (βglittering, whiteβ) (compare Ancient Greek αΌΟΞ³ΟΟ (argΓ³s), Latin argentum), but Gothic π°ππΊ- (ark-) may also be an early loan of (αΌΟΟΞΉ- (arkhi-, βarchi-β)); compare Ulfilan π°ππΊπ°π²π²πΉπ»πΏπ (arkaggilus) for archangelus.
Adjective
erchan
- sublime, chief, special, egregious, genuine, true (?)
- der erchano sangheri (=egregius psaltes, Isaiah 4:2)
- ercna euua (=certa lege Isaiah 2:1)
- allero specierum erchenosta (=speciem specialissimam)
- Also ih tes mennisken boteh einen toten mennisken heizo, nals nicht erchenen mennisken (Notker trans. Boethius 5 = Nam uti cadauer hominem mortuum dixeris, simpliciter uero hominem appellare non possis "For though you might call a cadaver 'a dead man', you cannot just simply call it 'a man' [viz. it is not genuinely a man].")
Derived terms
- erchanpruoder (βfull brother, germanusβ)
Descendants
- German: Erchtag (βTuesdayβ) (archaic, Bavarian)
References
- Eberhard Gottlieb Graff, Hans Ferdinand Massmann, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz, oder, WΓΆrterbuch der althochdeutschen Sprache, 1834, p. 468.
- Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (1835, trans. Stallybrass 1888), 113; 182β185.
- Bopp, Comparative Grammar (1815, trans. Eastwick 1862), p. 1285.
- Hjalmar Falk, Alf Torp, Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit, part 3, 5th ed., Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979, βISBN, p. 26.
- Lorenz Diefenbach, Vergleichendes WΓΆrterbuch der gotischen Sprache, J. Baer, 1851 p. 23.
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