| 释义 |
Norse, n. and a.|nɔːs|
[prob. ad. Du. noorsch, variant of noordsch, MDu. no(o)rdsch, no(o)rtsch, f. noord north + -sch -ish: cf. OFris. norsch, nordsch, northesk, MLG. norrisch, MSw. norsker (1436), Icel. norskur (16th c.), mod. Sw., Da., and Norw. norsk. Cf. Norish.]
A. n.
†1.
a. A Norwegian.
b. The Norwegian people or king. Obs. rare.
1598Hakluyt Voy. I. 3 The Norses haue possessed many lands and Islands of this Empire. a1719Lady Wardlaw Hardyknute ix, The king of Norse..Landed in fair Scotland. Ibid. xx, Now that Norse dois proudly boast Fair Scotland to inthrall.
2. As pl. (The) Norwegians. Also, any native or inhabitant of ancient Scandinavia.
1848Lytton Harold i. i, A simple song, that..betrayed its origin in the ballad of the Norse. 1902A. MacBain in Skene Highland. Scotl. 396 Erp, son of Meldun, was captured by the Norse. 1972W. B. Lockwood Panorama Indo-Europe. Lang. vii. 126 As many as 5,000 Norse are believed to have lived in Greenland.
3. The Norwegian tongue. Old Norse, the language of Norway and its colonies down to the 14th cent.; also, the North Germanic language which was the immediate ancestor of the Scandinavian languages.
a1688J. Wallace Descr. Orkney 33 All speak English with a good Accent, only some of the common People among themselves speak Norse or the old Gottish Language. 1703Brand Descr. Orkney 69 The Norse hath continued ever since the Norvegians had these Isles in Possession. 1763Blair Diss. in Ossian's Poems (1796) II. 323 Their ancient language..is called the Norse, and is a dialect..of the Scandinavian tongue. 1809A. Edmondston Zetland Isl. I. 142 Pure Norse or Norwegian is now unknown in it [sc. Zetland]. 1844Latham in Proc. Philol. Soc. I. 236 Even in the very earliest stages of the Old Norse. 1874R. Cowie Shetland (ed. 2) 24 In 1774, some of the people in Foula could repeat the Lord's Prayer in Norse. 1927E. V. Gordon Introd. Old Norse p. xvi, The structure of Gothic..reveals its affinity with Norse, but the differences between the oldest surviving Gothic..and Norse of the same period are too great for Gothic to be included in the Norse group of tongues.
B. adj. Norwegian; belonging to, originating from, Norway. Also, of or pertaining to ancient Scandinavia or the Norse peoples as a whole.
1768Gray Odes vii. (heading), The Fatal Sisters, from the Norse Tongue. 1774Low Tour Orkney & Schetland (1879) 105 The Norse Language is much worn out here..; it was the language of the last age. 1821Scott Pirate i, Land..in the possession of the Norse inhabitants. 1844Latham in Proc. Philol. Soc. I. 236 The examples drawn from the oldest Norse composition. 1874R. Cowie Shetland (ed. 2) 10 The first of the famous Norse jarls of Orkney and Zetland. 1885Encycl. Dict. V. i. 216/1 Norse,..of or pertaining to ancient Scandinavia or its inhabitants; Norwegian. 1927E. V. Gordon Introd. Old Norse p. xv, The home of the oldest Norse culture and the oldest Norse traditions was Sweden. Ibid. p. xxxv, The oldest Norse poetry preserved traditions which belonged not merely to the Norse peoples but to the Germanic race as a whole. 1970–73Saga-Book XVIII. 208, I may insert a word of warning on Dr Marwick's old-fashioned and narrowly correct use of the term ‘Norse’—to him it translates norsk, Norwegian and then especially landsmål.
Hence ˈNorseness, the state or quality of being Norwegian or Scandinavian.
1961Listener 7 Sept. 363/3 Ibsen's characters are always about to take flight into fantasy but their manner, their stubborn Norseness, holds them fast in a two-dimensional theatre. 1968G. Jones Hist. Vikings iii. iv. 264 The adoption of Slavonic customs had quietly eroded the Norseness of the Rus. |