CLAIM / COUNTERCLAIM / LIMITRECORD 558
DISPUTE
RECORD.
One scholarly question. Every attached source. The present editorial state, without pretending the last word has been written.
resolvedestablished
Was fjándi an Old Norse participle or a noun?
In the attested entry it is a masculine noun. The participial analysis belongs to its inherited formation, not to a relabeling of every Old Norse token.
WORD UNDER REVIEWDISPUTE 558
fjándi
approx. /ˈfjɑːndi/ · Old Norse masculine noun
Old Norse fjándi is a masculine noun whose inherited shape still exposes a prehistoric agent formation. Cleasby and Vigfússon compare Gothic fiands, Old English feond, German Feind, Swedish fiende, and Danish fjende, identify the nd as participial, and gloss the older formation as properly a hater. They then distinguish the ordinary enemy sense from a post-Christian fiend development. The University of Copenhagen Dictionary of Old Norse Prose supplies 222 citations and six semantic zones: enemy or opponent; devil, monster, or demon; evil spirit; pagan god; the Devil or Satan; and a derogatory term for a hated or bewitched person, animal, or object. Lexicon Poeticum independently exposes 49 poetic records, including source-reported tenth-century enemy uses and later Christian fiend uses, while warning that its concordance and dates require checking. The noun therefore does not possess one timeless true meaning: an inherited lexicalized hater became an ordinary enemy word, and the branch later accumulated several demonic and derogatory senses. The displayed pronunciation is an editorial normalized approximation, not recorded historical audio. No underlying manuscript object is claimed as directly inspected in this dossier.
01DIRECT CLAIM EVIDENCE
2 SOURCES WITH A STANCE
A citation is not a vote. Each record says whether the work supports, challenges, contradicts, or contextualizes the position—and identifies the exact locus used.
SOURCE 01supportshistorical dictionary
An Icelandic-English Dictionary — fjándi
Supplies the historical formation without overriding noun status.
Comparative header: nd indicates the participle- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- Richard Cleasby · Guðbrandur Vigfússon
- YEAR
- 1874
- PUBLISHER
- Clarendon Press · old-norse.net digital edition
SOURCE 02supportshistorical dictionary
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose — fjándi, masculine noun
Classifies the attested word as a masculine noun.
Headword fjándi sb. m. and inflection- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- Dictionary of Old Norse Prose editors
- YEAR
- 2010
- PUBLISHER
- University of Copenhagen
02 / EDITORIAL STATE
THE CURRENT RECORD IS RESOLVED.
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- STATUS
- resolved
- LEGACY SOURCE SUMMARY
- ONP classifies the lemma as sb. m.; Cleasby and Vigfússon explain the historical -nd- formation.
RESOLUTION NOTEThe graph separates the attested noun from the reconstructed lexicalized participle.