Bosworth Toller's

Anglo-Saxon

Dictionary online

æ
þ

hættian

  • verb [ weak ]
Dictionary links
Grammar
hættian, p. ode; pp. od
To take the hair and skin from a person's head
Show examples

  • Ðonne dó man út his eágan and ceorfan of his nóse and eáran and uferan lippan oððe hine hættian

    then let his eyes be put out and his nose and ears and upper lip be cut off; or let him have the hair and skin of his head pulled off,

      L. C. S. 30; Th. i. 394, 14.
    [The Latin version here has 'aut corium capitis cum capillis (auferatur) quod Angli vocant behættie :' Another translation has 'vel decapilletur.'] Sume man hættode, Chr. 1036; Ed. 164, 39.
  • In the note Earle quotes Florence of Worcester 'cute capitis abstracta.' Cf. Grmm. R. A. 703, where he quotes an explanation of the punishment by which the hair was dragged from a person's head, 'man windet im die haar mit einer kluppen oder knebel aus dem heupt.' He thinks the form hettian [hættian] has no sense, but may it not be connected with hæt, as it was just that part of the head which the hat covered that was affected? It was giving the victim the appearance of wearing a hat of a most ghastly kind.
Entry information
Citation

Bosworth, Joseph. “hættian.” 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/17993.

Checked: 0
Full form

Word-wheel

  • hættian, v.

Copyright

All the data provided here are free for any purpose. If you use the data for academic purposes, we ask that you kindly cite us as your source. In case you need a large portion of the dictionary data or you need it in a specific format, let us know through the contact form, we are happy to do custom database dumps for researchers.

How to cite

You can cite the entries of the online version of the dictionary, or you can cite the scanned pages of the original paper editions.

  • To cite the online version of the dictionary, click the icon right under the entry.
  • To cite the scanned paper version of the dictionary, click the "show/hide this scanned page" link under the entry, check the scan and use the citation information right above it.