du+mâle

f. chief defendantship or prosecutorship.

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older form aðilð, pl. ir, f. [root aðal], v. the following word aðili. It doubtless originally meant chiefdom, headship, but it only occurs in the limited legal sense of chief-prosecutorship or defendantship, and this only, as it seems, in Icel. not in Norse law. It is a standing word in the Icel. codes and histories of the Commonwealth. It became obsolete after the year 1272, and does not occur in the codes Jb. or Js. In early times there were no public prosecutions or lawsuits; the aðild devolved together with the erfð ( heirship) on the principal male heir, if of age; erfð and aðild go together, the first as a right, the last as an incumbent duty, like an English trusteeship; til erfðar ok aðiðar, Eb. ch. 38. In the year 993 a law was passed to the effect that male heirs under sixteen years of age should be exempted from aðild, neither should heiresses ever be aðili. In such cases the aðild devolved on the next male heir above sixteen years of age, who then got a fee for executing this duty, Bs. i. 675. The aðild also could be undertaken by a delegate, called at fara með handselda sök, sök handseld, vörn handseld, fara með sök, carry on a suit, etc., v. Grágás Vs. ch. 35, (of aðild in a case of manslaughter,) and in many other places ; Eb. ch. 38, Bs. i. 675 (Rs. in fine), Bjarn. (in fine), Njála, and many others: v. Dasent, Introd. to Burnt Njal.

COMPD: aðilðarmaðr.

n. pl. abomination, monstrous thing.

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n. pl. (mod. firni), [Ulf. fairina = αἰτία], an abomination, shocking thing; mæltu margir at slíkt væri mikil firn, Nj. 156, Fs. 62, Sturl. i. 12, Fms. vi. 38, Gullþ. 13; svá miklum firnum, Eg. 765; f. ok endemi, or heyr á firn, what a monstrous thing! Fms. vii. 21, 25: the saying, firnum nýtr þess er firnum fær, cp. the Lat. ‘male parta male dilabuntur,’ Fbr. 28, Grett. 16 new Ed.: gen. pl. firna-, used as a prefix to adjectives and nouns, shockingly.

COMPDS: firnadjarfr, firnafrost, firnafullr, firnaharðr.

II. in mod. usage, firni = a great deal, a lot; firnin o:ll, a vast lot.

m. male prisoner, bondman.

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m. a male prisoner, a bondman; haftr ok hernuminn, Fm. 7, 8, Vsp. 39, Akv. 28.

m. male salmon.

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m., older and better hæingr, m. a male salmon, called hungell in Shetl., Edda (Gl.), Fb. ii. 520 (in a verse) spelt hængs, Fas. ii. 112, freq. in mod. usage: a nickname, Landn.

adj., a law term, meaning full, complete; thus karlgildr úmagi means, not a ‘ male-úmagi,’ but a ‘complete invalid,’ one who can contribute nothing towards his sustenance, e. g. an infant, a sick or aged person, male or female. The word is a standing term in the old church deeds, where the donor charged the gift with the support of a karlgild úmagi for ever, D. I. passim. The old Swedish laws present the same use of the word, e. g. karlgild mark = good money, money of full value, see Verel. s. v.

(-s, -ar), m. one’s mother’s sister’s son, male cousin.

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m. one’s mother’s sister’s son, a male cousin (Dan. moster sön), Landn. 107, 178; s. við konung, the king’s cousin, Gþl. 54; Johannes euangelista, systrungr hans (i. e. Jesus) at frændsemi, Barl. 49; bræðrungar ok systrungar, brother’s sons and sister’s sons, first cousins on the mother’s and father’s side, Grág. i. 171; munu systrungar sifjum spilla, Vsp. (or is systrungar here the plur. fem. from systrung?); systrungs barn, a sister’s son’s child, a cousin’s child, Gþl. 244.

f. and almenningr, m.

I. in Icel. almost always fem. in the sense of fundus communis, ager compascuus, common land, belonging to a whole ‘fjórðungr’ (quarter) of the country, and thus wider than the mod. ‘afrétt.’ It still remains in the local name of the deserts round Cape Horn at the north-west point of Icel., cp. Fbr. and Landn. 124; cp. also the passage in Íb. ch. 3. The word is now seldom used except of wastes belonging to nobody: þat er almenning er fjórðungs menn eigu allir saman, Grág. ii. 392–394, Js. 107, Íb. ch. 3, Grág. ii. 345, 352, 359, 385, K. Þ. K. 26, Fbr. 41, Landn. 124, in all those cases fem.

II. masc. (Norse), [cp. Swed. almänning, pascuum, and Germ. almeinde, via publica or ager compascuus, Grimm R. A. p. 498]

1. common or public pasture (answering nearly to the Icel. afrétt), where cattle are grazed during the summer months, cp. the Norse setr, Icel. sel: rarely used in Icel. writers. In Ó. H., ch. 114, used of Grímsey, an island off the north coast of Iceland, Gþl. 450, Jb. 299, 311.

2. the high-street, in a Norse town, N. G. L. ii. 241.

3. the people, the public in general, common now in Icel. in this sense, Stj. 292, 493, Fbr. 194; almennings matr, common food, Bs. ii. 5, 179.

4. a levy, conscription; fullr, allr, hálfr a., a full, half levy of men and ships; fullr a. in Norway meant a levy of one in every seven male adults, N. G. L. ii. 199, Fms. iv. 142, i. 165, D. I. i. 66 (of the milit. duties of Icelanders when residing in Norway). Metaph. (as a phrase) in Nj. 207, of raising the country, the institution being unknown in the Icel. Commonwealth.

COMPDS: almenningsbréf, almenningsdrykkja, almenningsfar, almenningsmörk, almenningsstræti, almenningstollr, almenningsvegr.

jar, f. pl. ir, a law term, an only daughter entitled to receive and pay weregild, in default of heirs male. The Norse law defines thus, ef hon er einberni, ok til arfs komin, þar til er hón sezt á brúðstól, … up to her wedding day, N. G. L. i. 184, 92: the Icel. law does not limit the right to her marrying; sú er kona ein er bæði skal baugi bæta ok baug taka, ef hon er einberni, en sú kona heitir b., en hon er dóttir hins dauða, Grág. ii. 183.

m. a big, sort of seal, male seal; also as a nickname.

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m. pl. lar, [bremol, Ivar Aasen], phoca fetida mas, also called brim-selr = útselr, a big sort of seal, Höfuðl. 5: Brimils-gjá, a local name.

1) father or mother (hvárttveggja feðginit);

2) pl. parents; várra fyrstu feðgina, of our first parents; f. eða ná-frændr, parents or near kinsfolk; hjá feðginum sínum ok forellrismönnum, by his parents and forefathers.

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n. pl. parents, (in Icel. the neut. is the collective gender for male and female); in old writers only in this sense, but about the time of the Reformation it was replaced by foreldrar, Germ. vorältern, which word in old writers means forefathers, whereas feðgin is the word for parents only; várra fyrstu feðgina, of our first parents (Adam and Eve), Stj. 39; feðgin vár, Lil. 18; hans feðginum, Stj. 127; einberni sinna feðgina, Mar.; börn ok þeirra feðgin, K. Á. 146; frænda eðr feðgina, Barl. 122; feðginum eða ná-frændum, parents or near kinsfolk, Fms. ii. 227; feðgrina barnsins, N. G. L. i. 392; hjá feðginum sínum ok forellris-mönnum, by his parents and forefathers, Stj. 190; sing., hvárttveggja feðginit, 97: this sense still remains in guð-feðgin, q. v., god-parents; and it has slipped into two passages of the Icel. N. T., viz. þetta sögðu hans feðgin, John ix. 22; fyrir því sögðu hans feðgin, 23; (for in all the other passages foreldrar or foreldri is used.)

II. mod. father and daughter, cp. mæðgin, mother and son; systkin, brother and sister, all of them neut.

n., proncd. hrokkelsi, the cyclopterus, lump-sucker, collectively; but the male fish is called rauðmagi, the female grámagi or grásleppa, Bjarn. (in a verse), freq. hrokkelsa-fjara, u, f. catching lump-suckers on the beach.

(pl. hundruð), n. hundred; tírœtt h. = 100; tólfrœtt h. = 120; hundruðum, by (in) hundreds; as value, one hundred and twenty ells of the stuff wadmal; h. frítt, a hundred paid in cattle; tólf hundruð mórend, twelve hundred in dark-striped wadmal; hundrað silfrs, ? the silver value of 120 ells (= 20 ounces).

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n. pl. hundruð; the form hund- (q. v.) only occurs in a few old compd words: [Goth. hunda, pl.; A. S. hund; O. H. G. hunt; the extended form in Hel. and old Frank, hundered; Germ. hundert; Dan. hundrede; Swed. hundra; the inflexive syllable is prob. akin to - ræðr in átt-ræðr]:—a hundred; the Scandinavians of the heathen time (and perhaps also all Teutonic people) seem to have known only a duo-decimal hundred (= 12 × 10 or 120); at that time 100 was expressed by tíu-tíu, cp. Ulf. taihun-taihund = ten-teen; Pal Vídalín says,—hundrað tólfrætt er sannlega frá heiðni til vor komið, en hið tíræða er líkast að Norðrlönd hafi ekki vitað af fyrr en Kristni kom hér og með henni lærdómr þeirrar aldar, Skýr. s. v. Hundrað (fine): but with the introduction of Christianity came in the decimal hundred, the two being distinguished by adjectives,—tólfrætt hundrað = 120, and tírætt hundrað = 100. But still the old popular duodecimal system continued in almost all matters concerned with economical or civil life, in all law phrases, in trade, exchange, property, value, or the like, and the decimal only in ecclesiastical or scholastic matters (chronology, e. g. Íb. ch. 1, 10). At the same time the word in speech and writing was commonly used without any specification of tírætt or tólfrætt, for, as Pal Vídalín remarks, every one acquainted with the language knew which was meant in each case; even at the present time an Icel. farmer counts his flocks and a fisherman his share (hlutr) by the duodecimal system; and everybody knows that a herd or share of one hundred and a half means 120 + 60 = 180. In old writers the popular way of counting is now and then used even in chronology and in computation, e. g. when Ari Frode (Íb. ch. 4) states that the year consists of three hundred and four days (meaning 364); the census of franklins given by the same writer (where the phrase is hundruð heil = whole or full hundreds) is doubtless reckoned by duodecimal, not decimal hundreds, Íb. ch. 10; and in the census of priests and churches taken by bishop Paul (about A. D. 1200) ‘tíræð’ is expressively added, lest duodecimal hundreds should be understood, Bs. i. 136. The Landn. (at end) contains a statement (from Ari?) that Iceland continued pagan for about a hundred years, i. e. from about 874–997 A. D. In the preface to Ólafs S., Snorri states that two duodecimal hundreds (tvau hundruð tólfræð) elapsed from the first colonisation of Iceland before historical writing began (i. e. from about A. D. 874–1115): levies of ships and troops are in the laws and Sagas counted by duodecimal hundreds, e. g. the body-guard of king Olave consisted of a hundred hirð-men, sixty house-carles and sixty guests, in all ‘two hundred’ men, i. e. 240, Mork. 126; the sons of earl Strút-Harald had a hundred men, of whom eighty were billetted out and forty returned, Fms. xi. 88, 89; hálft hundrað, a half hundred = sixty, Mork. l. c.

2. a division of troops = 120; hundraðs-flokkr, Fms. vi. (in a verse).

II. in indef. sense, hundreds, a host, countless number, see hund-, as also in the adverb, phrase, hundruðum, by hundreds (indefinitely), Fms. vi. 407, Þiðr. 275, 524: in mod. usage as adjective and indecl., except the pl. in -uð, thus hundruð ásauðum, Dipl. iv. 10.

B. As value, a hundred, i. e. a hundred and twenty ells of the stuff wadmal, and then simply value to that amount (as a pound sterling in English). All property, real as well as personal, is even at present in Icel. taxed by hundreds; thus an estate is a ‘twenty, sixty, hundred’ estate; a franklin gives his tithable property as amounting to so and so many hundreds. As for the absolute value of a hundred, a few statements are sufficient, thus e. g. a milch cow, or six ewes with lambs, counts for a hundred, and a hundrað and a kúgildi (cow’s value) are equal: the charge for the alimentation of a pauper for twelve months was in the law (Jb. 165) fixed to four hundred and a half for a male person, but three hundred and a half for a female; cp. also the phrase, það er ekki hundrað í hættunni, there is no hundred at stake, no great risk! In olden times a double standard was used,—the wool or wadmal standard, called hundrað talið = a hundred by tale, i. e. a hundred and twenty ells as stated above, and a silver standard, called hundrað vegit, a hundred by weight, or hundrað silfrs, a hundred in silver, amounting to two marks and a half = twenty ounces = sixty örtugar; but how the name hundred came to be applied to it is not certain, unless half an örtug was taken as the unit. It is probable that originally both standards were identical, which is denoted by the phrase, sex álna eyrir, six ells to an ounce, or a hundred and twenty ells equal to twenty ounces (i. e. wadmal and silver at par); but according as the silver coinage was debased, the phrases varied between nine, ten, eleven, twelve ells to an ounce (N. G. L. i. 80, 81, 387, 390, passim), which denote bad silver; whereas the phrase ‘three ells to an ounce’ (þriggja álna eyrir, Sturl. i. 163, passim, or a hundred in wadmal equal to half a hundred in silver) must refer either to a double ell or to silver twice as pure: the passage in Grág. i. 500 is somewhat obscure, as also Rd. 233: the words vegin, silfrs, or talin are often added, but in most cases no specification is given, and the context must shew which of the two standards is there meant; the wool standard is the usual one, but in cases of weregild the silver standard seems always to be understood; thus a single weregild (the fine for a man’s life) was one hundred, Njála passim.

2. the phrases, hundrað frítt, a hundred paid in cattle, Finnb. 236; tólf hundruð mórend, twelve hundred in dark striped wadmal, Nj. 225; hundrað í búsgögnum ok í húsbúningi, Vm. 65; hundraðs-gripr, hestr, hross, kapall, hvíla, sæng, rekkja, psaltari, etc., a beast, a horse, a bed, etc., of a hundred’s value, Am. 2, 10, Vm. 25, 39, 60, 153, Jm. 3, 30; hundraðs-úmagi, a person whose maintenance costs a hundred, Vm. 156; hundraðs virði, a hundred’s value, 68. For references see the Sagas and laws passim, and for more information see Mr. Dasent’s Essay in Burnt Njal.

C. A hundred, a political division which in olden times was common to all Teut. nations, but is most freq. in old Swedish laws, where several hundreds made a hérað or shire; cp. the A. S. and Engl. hundred, Du Cange hundredum; old Germ. hunderti, see Grimm’s Rechts Alterthümer; the centum pagi of Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. ch. 1, is probably the Roman writer’s misconception of the Teut. division of land into hundreds; this is also the case with Tacit. Germ. ch. 12: cp. the Swed. local names Fjaðrunda-land, Áttundaland, and Tíunda-land, qs. Fjaðr-hunda land, Átthunda land, Tíhunda land, i. e. a combination of four, eight, ten hundreds. The original meaning was probably a community of a hundred and twenty franklins or captains. This division is not found in Icel.

a. active, brisk, vigorous (h. maðr, h. hugr); neut. ‘hvatt’ as adv. quickly (riða hvatt, sem hvatast).

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adj., fem. hvöt, neut. hvatt, bold, active, vigorous; in the saying, engi er einna hvatastr, Hm. 63; h. maðr, Fms. vii. 160, Fm. 6. 24, 30, 31; ef engi hefði verit hvatari höfðingi í her þessum en þú, Fms. vi. 160; hvatr hugr, Fm. 26: acc. as adv., ríða hvatan, to ride at a quick pace, Ld. 260: neut. hvatt, id.; ríða hvatt, Fb. ii. 125, Sighvat; hann bað menn sína fara sem hvatast, Eg. 217.

II. male, opp. to blauðr, female, of beasts; h. köttr, freq. in mod. usage.

n. male folk; brenndu hann inni ok allt karla-fólk en konur gengu út, Dropl. 4.

m. the male side, side where the men sit, the right hand in a church, etc., i. e. opp. to kvenna vegr, D. N. iv. 283.

n. a male child, Stj. 248.

n. a male beast, Stj. 71.