Polabn.adj.

Etymology: < Czech Polabě < po along, on + Laba Elbe (see note below). Compare German Polaben , plural noun (1693 or earlier with reference to the Slavic people living around Ratzeburg: see note below; apparently not attested with reference to the Slavic people living in the Lüneburg and Hanover region until considerably later (beginning of the 20th cent.)). With sense A. 2 compare French polabe (1873 or earlier in this sense).The name is first recorded in the 11th–12th cent. (as post-classical Latin Polabi ), where it refers to a different medieval Slavic people, living around Ratzeburg, whose language died out without being recorded. The original name (1004) for the people living in the Lüneburg and Hanover region was Drewani . In this area (which is on the River Elbe and later acquired the German name Drawehn) the Slavonic language survived until the 18th cent. and the people used the self-designation slüvenst'ě or venst'ě (see Wend n.); their language was known as Wendish n. until the late 18th cent. Compare the following earlier quots., in which the word probably refers to the people living around Ratzeburg:1627 G. Richardson Of State of Europe xii. 49 They comprehended the sundry names, and people..; the Obotriti, Polabi, [etc.].a1729 E. Taylor Metrical Hist. Christianity (1962) 321 The eastward Vandalls, whose chiefe tribes we call Polabs, and Obatrits, Kissins.