eldertongue

Old English · noun

merewif

Part of speech
noun, neuter
IPA
/ˈme.re.wiːf/
Syllables
ˈme · re · wiːf (3 syllables)

Meaning

  1. A folklorical female being with ambigous and varrying traits, associated with water.; a witch associated with water

  2. A folklorical female being with ambigous and varrying traits, associated with water.; mermaid

Etymology

By surface analysis, mere (“lake, sea”) + wif (“woman”), literally “merwife”, potentially to an earlier Proto-West Germanic *mariwīb, from Proto-Germanic *mariwībą (“mermaid, siren”) Cognate with Old High German meriwīb. The construction varries regionally for the same basic folklore in Europe. Compare Old Swedish marnunna (literally “mer-nun”), Swedish havsfru (literally “sea-wife”), English mermaid (literally “mer-maiden”).

Descendants

merwife

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/merewif · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution