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wynn - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English wynne, winne, wenne, wunne, wyn, from Old English wynn (“joy, pleasure”), from Proto-West Germanic *wunnju, from Proto-Germanic *wunjō, from Proto-Indo-European *wn̥h₁yeh₂, from *wenh₁- (“desire, wish, love”).

Wynn
Wynn

wynn (plural wynns)

  1. A letter of the Old English alphabet, ƿ, borrowed from the futhark and used to represent the sound of w; replaced in Middle English times by the digraph uu, which later developed into the letter w.

    • 1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 175:

      The Norman scribes gradually replaced wynn by u, uu, vv, and w itself.

A metathesized borrowing from the Imperial Aramaic gentilic plural 𐡉𐡅𐡍𐡉𐡍 (ywnyn /⁠*yawnāyīn⁠/, “Greeks”), ultimately derived from Ancient Greek Ἰᾱ́ϝων (Iā́wōn, “Ionian”). Compare Jewish Literary Aramaic יַוְנָאִין (yawnāʾīn, “Greeks”).

T14-N25⁠n-2⁠n-2⁠y⁠w m

  1. Greek (person)
  • Erichsen, Wolja (1954) Demotisches Glossar, Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, page 80
  • Černý, Jaroslav (1976) Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 213
  • Brugsch, F. Chabas and Eug. Revillout (1911) Revue Égyptologique publiée sous la direction de MM. Vol. XIII, page 107, Paris

From Proto-West Germanic *wunnju.

wynn f

  1. joy, delight

    • 10th century, The Wanderer:

      oþþe mec frēondlēasne · frēfran wolde,
      wēman mid wynnum. · Wāt sē þe cunnað,
      hū slīþen bið · sorg tō ġefēran,
      þām þe him lȳt hafað · lēofra ġeholena.

      or friendless me would soothe,
      allure with glees. Knows the one who undergoes,
      how tough is sorrow as a companion,
      to whom little has dear confidants for himself.
  2. the runic character ᚹ
  3. the letter wynn: Ƿ, ƿ (/w/)

Mostly occurs in poetry and feminine proper names. The normal prose words for "joy" were ġefēa and bliss.

Strong ō-stem: