Talk:heafod-

RFD discussion: September–October 2019

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

heafod-

These are just the regular word heafod used in compounds and not a prefix proper; all the senses are already at the regular, non-prefix entry. (There's a reason we don't have English head- either.) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:03, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

@Leasnam (tagging creator) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:09, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

The sense of "main, primary", "leading, principal" is not carried by the stand-alone word hēafod. Perhaps we should have English head-. German has haupt-, and Dutch has hoofd- Leasnam (talk) 16:57, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

We have head: “Foremost in rank or importance”. Perhaps this sense was also present in hēafod.  --Lambiam 20:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I see it attested as a noun only in Old English; and never declined like an adjective. Therefore I would not be comfortable in relaying that it can also mean "foremost in rank or importance". Are you perhaps looking somewhere that I may not be ? Leasnam (talk) 22:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

The stress in terms like head gardener shows that the first component is a noun, not an adjective.  --Lambiam 15:15, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

That can be pronounced either as /ˈhed ˌɡɑːdnə(ɹ)/ or /ˌhed ˈɡɑːdnə(ɹ)/ Leasnam (talk) 18:08, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't the "main/primary" meaning of the affix correspond to a somewhat figurative use of the sense "chief" of the noun? I guess my RfD nom follows from the fact that I don't think those two meanings are really so distinct as to see the figurative meaning as a prefix proper. Personally I'd solve the whole thing by adding that semi-figurative sense which currently justifies the prefix entry as a subsense to the "chief" sense at the noun entry, specifying further thru a {{lb|ang|in compounds}} template. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 08:57, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

That would seem to make sense, however, the combining form of OE hēafod- (“major, main, chief”) almost certainly has a distinct etymology to the combining form of hēafod (“head”, anatomical sense), with the prefix descending from (West) Proto-Germanic *haubuda-, ultimately related to the noun *haubudą. It has parallels in OFS (hāveddēde (“capital crime”), hāvedlith, hāvednēd, hāvedseke, etc.), OSX (hovidstedi), and OHG (houbitburg, houbitman, houbitskaz, houbitskuld, houbitstat, houbitsunta, etc.). It's too coincidental that all four languages developed this same unique sense, separate from the meaning "pertaining to the head (anat.)" independently from the noun for 'head' in each language. Leasnam (talk) 22:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I've broken out quite a few senses of the English adjective into a separate etymology (now Etymology 2): compare head_{adj_1} and head_{adj_2}: “Foremost in rank or importance”, since it's pretty clear that the Middle English adjective sense stems from hēafod- (cf. main from mæġen-). Leasnam (talk) 01:11, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

RFD retracted, you have convinced me — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)