Q: I’ve just started reading The Age of Deer by Erika Howsare, a book that delves into the connections between deer and humans. Are the words “dear” and “deer” related, or are they simply two different words with the same pronunciation?
A: The answer is that “dear” and “deer” may indeed be etymologically related, rather than just homonyms, but the evidence is not definitive.
In Old English, the noun “deer” (spelled dior or deor, and sometimes dear) meant something like “beast” and referred to wild animals in general, particularly four-legged ones. The common term for animals with antlered males was heort or heorot, which is the ancestor of “hart.”
On the other hand, the adjective “dear” had two versions: deore (beloved or valuable) and deor (brave, ferocious, savage, or wild, an obsolete sense possibly linked to the noun “deer”).
There has been debate among linguists regarding whether deore and deor were two distinct adjectives or one adjective with two meanings. If Old English had only one adjective, then it is likely that the modern words “dear” and “deer” are connected.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, both deore and deor have roots in prehistoric Germanic, an ancient language reconstructed by linguists, although it notes that deor is “of uncertain etymology.”
However, linguist Anatoly Lieberman argues in a post on the blog of Oxford University Press dated May 19, 2021, that the two terms stem from the same ancient source:
“Some reputable authorities tentatively (very tentatively!) acknowledge that Old English dēor(e) and dēor are two senses of the same word. In my view, their hesitation and the common assertion ‘origin unknown’ concerning dēor ‘savage, fierce,’ are unfounded.”
Lieberman suggests, “it is likely that the original meaning of the adjective dear was ‘requiring a strong effort’; hence ‘fierce, wild; hard to obtain; costly; precious,’ and of course ‘dear,’ whether ‘expensive’ or ‘priceless.’ ”
He further explains, “based on what we know about the Old Germanic ethos, monsters and heroes were believed to possess similar qualities, but what was ‘noble, valorous, praiseworthy’ in the hero was ‘ferocious, deadly’ in his enemy.”
If Lieberman’s theory is correct—and we cautiously agree with him—then “dear” and “deer” are intertwined.
The earliest citation in the OED for the noun “deer” spells it dear and refers to a large beast: “Se camal þæt micla dear” (“The camel that great deer”). This is from an interlinear Old English gloss of the Latin in the Lindisfarne Gospels, Luke 18:25.
Here is a complete version of the verse in Early Modern English from the King James Version: “For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
The earliest example in the dictionary for the noun “deer” in its modern sense (referring to the horned animal often hunted) is from Layamon’s Brut, a British chronicle written in Middle English before 1200: “To huntien after deoren.”
The OED mentions an earlier Old English passage that includes hrana (reindeer) among a group of wild animals: “syx hund. Þa deor” (“those 600 hundred deer”).
Regarding the adjective “dear,” the dictionary states that the affectionate sense evolved gradually in Old English from “esteemed” to “beloved,” but “the transition from one notion to the other was too gradual to separate them.”
The first citation in the OED for “dear” (used to describe Jesus) is from Juliana, an Old English poem by Cynewulf about the martyrdom of Saint Juliana of Nicomedia. In this passage, Juliana implores all of humanity to pray for her:
“meotud bidde þæt me heofona helm helpe gefremme, meahta waldend, on þam miclan dæge, fæder, frofre gæst, in þa frecnan tid, dæda demend, ond se deora sunu” (“pray to the creator that the guardian of heaven, the wielder of powers, the father, the holy spirit, the judge of deeds, and his dear son may help me in that time of terror, on that greatest of days”).
Moving on to the expensive sense of the adjective, the first OED citation, expanded here, is from an entry for the year 1044 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
“On ðisum gere wæs swyðe mycel hunger ofer eall Englaland and corn swa dyre swa nan man ær ne gemunde swa þæt se sester hwætes eode to LX pen” (“In this year there was very great hunger over all England and corn [grain] so dear as no man remembered before so that a sester [a dry measure] of wheat went for 60 pence”).
Over time, the adjective has acquired various other meanings, including addressing someone fondly or respectfully (circa 1250), indicating scarcity (before 1330), referring to the recipient of a letter (c. 1402), and describing money that can only be borrowed at a high interest rate (1878).
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