Bosworth Toller's

Anglo-Saxon

Dictionary online

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þorp

  • noun [ masculine ]
Dictionary links
Grammar
þorp, þrop, es; m.
Wright's OE grammar
§106; §232; §335;
Perhaps the idea at first connected with the words is that of an assemblage, cf. the use in Icelandic: Maðr heitir einnhverr ... þorp ef þrír ero, Skáldskaparmál; þyrpast to crowd, throng: þyrping a crowd: later the word may have been used of the assemblage of workers on an estate, and also of the estate on which they worked; all three ideas seem to be implied in one or other of the following glosses
Show examples

  • Tuun, þrop, ðrop

    conpetum

    ,
    • Txts. 53, 557
      • :
    • Wrt. Voc. ii. 15, 7
      • .

  • Compitum i. villa vel þingstów vel þrop,

    • 132, 56
      • .

  • Þrop

    fundus,

    • i. 37, 51
      • .
Show examples

  • Ic Ædgar gife freodom Sce Petres mynstre Medeshamstede of kyng and of biscop, and ealle þa þorpes þe ðærto lin: ðæt is, Æstfeld and Dodesthorp and Ege and Pastun,

    • Chr. 963; Erl. 121, 40
      • .

  • He com to Bethfage, swo hatte þe prop,

    • O. E. Homl. ii. 89, 13
      • .

  • Ther stod a throp ... in which that poure folk hadden her bestes and her herbergage,

    • Chauc. Cl. T. 199
      • .

  • Thorp, litell towne or thoroughfare

    oppidum,

    • Prompt. Parv. 492
      • .
The idea of an estate belongs to the word in Gothic: Þaurp ni gastaistald άγρόν oύκ έκτησάμην,
  • Neh. 5, 16
    • .
In the end the meaning came to be hamlet, village, in which sense it remained for some time in English, e.g.: The word is now obsolete, but it remains in a great many local names, either alone or in composition; though, as such names are found mostly in those parts of England which were affected by the Danes, its occurrence in them may be due rather to Scandinavian than to English influence.
  • v. Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names of Places, p. 43 sqq.;
  • Taylor's words and Places, s.v.
Etymology
Goth. þaurp
O. Frs. thorp, therp
O. L. Ger. thorp, tharp
Du. dorp
O. H. Ger. dorf villa, vicus, praedium, oppidum, municipium
Icel. þorp a hamlet, village
Linked entries
v.  þrop.
Entry information
Citation

Bosworth, Joseph. “þorp.” In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/31961.

Checked: 2
Full form

Word-wheel

  • þorp, n.

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