Hurry
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Location: Melbourne
Hurry
I can't find a believable origin for this common word. Any ideas?
- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 8202
- Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
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Re: Hurry
Courtesy of Etymonline:
1590s, transitive and intransitive, first recorded in Shakespeare, who used it often; perhaps a variant of harry (v.), or perhaps a West Midlands sense of Middle English hurren "to vibrate rapidly, buzz" (of insects), from Proto-Germanic *hurza "to move with haste" (source also of Middle High German hurren "to whir, move fast," Old Swedish hurra "to whirl round"), which also perhaps is the root of hurl (v.).
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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- Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 1149
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:21 am
- Location: Melbourne
Re: Hurry
Thanks for the leg-work on this one, Slava. I clicked your link and discovered this remarkable assertion under 'harry'.
It's the bit in brackets that raised my eyebrows. How do we get from an armed force to here? Sounds unlikely to me....from Proto-Germanic *harjan "an armed force" (source also of Old English here)...
Last edited by David Myer on Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 8202
- Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
- Location: Finger Lakes, NY
Re: Hurry
But David, you dropped the rest of the sentence, which is
The here there is Old English, not current English for in this place.
, Old Norse herr "crowd, great number; army, troop," Old Saxon and Old Frisian heri, Dutch heir, Old High German har, German Heer, Gothic harjis "a host, army").
The here there is Old English, not current English for in this place.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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