Ordbog over det danske Sprog — Fjende
Explicitly labels the Devil branch.
Sense 1.1 and supplement: den gamle Fjende- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- ODS editorial team
- YEAR
- 1922
- PUBLISHER
- Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab
PERMANENT DISPUTE RECORD
ALL DISPUTES ↗One scholarly question. Every attached source. The present editorial state, without pretending the last word has been written.
Yes in a bounded religious branch. ODS identifies den gamle Fjende and related uses as the Devil, while ordinary enemy remains the general sense.
[ˈfjenə] or [ˈfjεnə] · Danish common-gender noun
Modern Danish fjende is the ordinary noun for a person, state, force, ideological opponent, or figurative thing that harms something else. Den Danske Ordbog derives it from Old Norse fjándi, compares German Feind, and identifies the older formation as a present participle of a verb corresponding to Old Norse fjá, to hate or persecute. Gammeldansk Ordbog records fiende broadly from 1100–1300. Ordbog over det danske Sprog preserves fiende, finde, and related spellings, an ordinary enemy sense, military and animal uses, abstract threats, and a special religious Devil branch. Holbergordbog shows that Fiende could still scan as either three syllables or two, alongside Fiænde, Finde, Fînde, and clipped Fiend. The word is therefore a grammatical fossil, not a current psychological definition: a lexicalized one-who-hates became the ordinary Danish enemy noun and accumulated broad contextual work. The current pronunciations are dictionary records, not retrojections into medieval Danish. No manuscript or print object is claimed as directly inspected.
DIRECT CLAIM EVIDENCE
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.
Explicitly labels the Devil branch.
Sense 1.1 and supplement: den gamle FjendeThe Devil is neither erased nor promoted into the word’s sole original meaning.