sylfmyrþ
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Old English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
sylfmyrþ ?
- (hapax) suicide? The word occurs only in two textually related glosses on the Greek-derived Latin word biothanatus in Aldhelm of Malmesbury's Prosa de virginitate. Clayton suggests 'the act of suicide', while other Old English glosses on the same sentence suggest the meaning 'self-killer'.[1] Bosworth and Toller suggest 'self-destructive'.
References[edit]
- Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “self-myrþe”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary[1], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Mary Clayton, 'Suicide in the Works of Aelfric', The Review of English Studies, new series, 60 (2008) 339–70 (p. 370).
- ^ William Garlington Stryker, 'The Latin-Old English GLossary in MS. Cotton Cleopatra A iii' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1951), gloss number 3248.
- ^ J. J. Quinn, 'The Minor Latin-Old English Glossaries in M.S. Cotton Cleopatra A. iii' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1956), gloss number 744.