endlongprep.adv.adj.

Etymology: The early southern Middle English endelong , < ende end n. + long adj.¹, seems to have been substituted by popular etymology for the preposition andlang (see along prep.), the first element of this having ceased to be intelligible, while the new compound yielded an identical sense (compare on end , end on , end-away adv.). In purely southern English endelong did not long survive, its place being taken by along adj.², prep., and adv., the reduced form of the earlier andlang . But from 14th cent. onwards endlang , endlong appear (as preposition and adjective) in northern and midland dialects, where they may be < Old Norse endelangr , endlangr adjective ( < ende-r end n. + langr long adj.¹), synonymous with Old English andlang adjective ‘the whole length of’. In our quots. the adjectival use of endlong first occurs in a passage of Caxton's ed. of Trevisa's Higden, where it is substituted for evelong (= avelong adj., oblong), used by Trevisa himself. Subsequently (in 17th cent.) the adverb assumed the sense ‘on end’, ‘end foremost or downwards’, in accordance with the analogy of words like headlong, sidelong, where -long is a perversion of the Old English suffix -lunga. This use still occasionally appears in standard English; the other uses are now peculiar to Scots and northern dialects, except as deliberate archaisms. Prof. Sievers ( Festgaben f. Böhtlingk 1888) considers that the second element in Old English andlang is not identical with long adj.¹, but is directly from the Old Germanic verb *ling-an, lang, lung-ano- to reach, extend. The Old Norse endlanger, English endlong, he regards as altered < andlangr, Old English andlang by popular etymology.