Old English · noun
lagu
- Part of speech
- noun, feminine
- Declension
- strong ō-stem
- IPA
- /ˈlɑ.ɡu/[ˈlɑ.ɣu]
- Syllables
- ˈlɑ · ɡu (2 syllables)
- Modern English
- lawlaylegalprivilegesealake
lagu1 · noun · feminine
Senses
-
law
-
rule
-
right, legal privilege
Declension · strong ō-stem
lagu2 · noun · masculine
Senses
-
sea, water, lake
Ne biþ him tō hearpan hyġe, ne tō hringþege, ne tō wīfe wyn, ne tō worulde hyht, ne ymbe ōwiht elles, nefne ymb ȳða ġewealc, ac ā hafað longunge sē þe on lagu fundað.
His mind is not for a harp, nor for a gift of ring, nor for a wife’s mirth, nor for world’s hope, nor about anything else, unless about the rolling of waves, but he always has a longing, the one who rushes onto the sea.
10th century, The Seafarer: -
the runic character (/l/)
byþ lēodum langsum ġeþūht...
Sea is by princes thought long-enduring...
The Old English rune poem
Declension · strong u-stem
All forms (4)
Etymology
Borrowed (ca. 1000 C.E.) from Old Norse lǫg (“the things that are laid down, the laws”), originally a neuter plural but reanalysed as a feminine singular when it was borrowed into Old English. From the singular Proto-Germanic *lagą (“something laid”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-, the root of English lie, lay. The Old Icelandic word means "something laid down or fixed", both in the literal sense of "layer, stratum" and in the figurative "agreed share", "fixed price", "partnership", etc. The plural had the collective sense of "[body of] law". The native Old English word replaced by the Old N…
From Proto-West Germanic *lagu (“water, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *laguz, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“pond, pool”). Cognate with Latin lacus (“hollow, pond”), Old Irish loch (“lake, pond”), Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “waterhole, pond, pit”).
Descendants
law, lay
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lagu · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution