Old English · noun
heahfore
Normalised hēahfore
- Part of speech
- noun, feminine
- Declension
- weak n-stem
- IPA
- /ˈxæ͜ɑːx.fo.re/[ˈhæ͜ɑːx.fo.re]
- Syllables
- ˈxæ͜ɑːx · fo · re (3 syllables)
- Modern English
- heifer
Meaning
-
heifer
Declension
All forms (4)
Etymology
This first element of this word is customarily identified with hēah (“tall, high”), beginning with Franciscus Junius's 17th-century Etymologicum Anglicanum; the remainder is now usually held to be from either faru (“journey”) or fearr (“bull”), though the latter is less likely. Discussion of Liberman's alternative etymology Liberman instead suggests that this compound is from *hæg- (“pen”, see haga) + -fore (“inhabitant”). However, this etymology fails to explain the phonological shape of this word (a long vowel is required by Middle English forms in /ɛː/, while *hæg should become palatalised …
Descendants
heifer
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heahfore · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution