Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2005, Page 6

On the etymology of Far. Grind
“school of pilot whales”
W.B. Lockwood
German Department, University, Whiteknights, P.O. Box 218, Reading RG6 6AA, England
It is generally recognised that grind in
the above sense is a truncated form of
hvalgrind, fírst attested in Danicised
Hvalsgrind occurring in Claussøn Friis
(1632), to all appearances based on the
report of a Faroese informant from 1592
(Lockwood, 1995).
In her perceptive study “A note on the
derivation of Faroese grind", K. Sand-
erson (1995) demonstrates that Claussøn
Friis misunderstood the element -grind
which he defines as trellis-work, whereas
in reality the meaning is mating. There
are cognates in Icelandic: (Bløndal, 1920-
1924) hvalir í grindum, “hvalir, der par-
rer sig”, grindingar f.pl. “parring” (om
hunde og ræve), vera í grindingum “parre
sig” (Magnússon, ) grinda sig “maka sig”.
This last is comparable to Far. grindast
“være i Rid, coire” (de cetis), recorded by
Mohr, cf. Svabo (1966: 289) evidently the
original sense of this verb. Sanderson con-
cludes that Far. grind and related words
appear to require further etymological in-
vestigation. This we now undertake.
The terms in question are known only
from modern sources. Nevertheless their
mutual relationship can be determined. It
is permissible to find a singular *grind
in the Icelandic phrase í grindum. From
this, the basis noun, doubtless of medieval
age, the weak verbs Icel. grinda sig and
Far. grindast will have been derived, the
Icelandic verb in turn giving rise to grind-
ingar.
We now have evidence for a West Norse
word grind “mating”. It may be formally
compared with Dutch and Low Germ.
grind “gravel; coarse meal” going back
to medieval times, further with notable
semantic change Old High Germ. grint
“scurf”, today Grind. These West Ger-
manic nouns are referable to a primitive
sense “something ground”, the match-
ing verb surviving in Old Engl. grindan
“grind, scrape, rub”, a strong and there-
fore primary verb. The meaning of West
Norse grind “mating” can now be seen as
a specialisation of an earlier sense “rub-
bing”. Remarkably enough, it is paralleled
in English, cf. Oxford English Dictionary
(1987) VI: 846 grind “(an act of) copula-
tion”! The word is in common use, though
vulgar. The first recording, however, is
not earlier than 1893, so that one tends to
assume that such usage in recent. On the
Fróðskaparrit 53. bók 2005: 4-5