Re: Needfire

   Thanks.  "Knead" sounded too clever, and one of the rules of etymology that I've observed is that the more clever the explanation, the less likely it is to be true.

 

David Fickett-Wilbar

 

 

At 11:26:59 AM on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, ceiserith@... wrote:

> I'm not finding a reliable etymology for "needfire" in any
> of my sources or on-line. I've found two, the first being
> the obvious, with "need" meaning "need," and the second
> relating it to "knead," as in a fire created by friction.

I don't know whether you have access to the on-line OED; its
entry for is from September 2003. In case you
haven't, the etymology given is the obvious one. The rest
of the etymological note reads as follows:

Compare German Notfeuer, †Nothfeuer in senses 2 and 3.
With sense 2 compare also Middle Low German nōtvūr (German
regional (Low German) Notfüer), Middle High German
nōtviur; compare also Norwegian (Nynorsk) naudeld,
(Bokmål) naudeld, naueld, nødeld, etc., Swedish
(regional) nödeld, (see eld n.1), and Scottish Gaelic
teine-éigin (< teine fire + éigin force, necessity). With
sense 3 compare also Old Saxon niedfyr, niedfeor, neidfyr,
nōdfiur.

It is unclear whether the semantic parallels for senses 3
and, more strikingly, sense 2 should be taken as
indicating that the English word is much earlier than its
earliest attestations would suggest, or whether instead in
these senses it is in fact a calque on a form in another
language. Sense 1 does not appear to be attested outside
English.

Sense †1: Sc. Spontaneous combustion. In early use only in
to take needfire . Also fig. Obs.

Sense 2: Fire obtained from dry wood by means of violent
friction, formerly credited with various magical
properties, esp. in protecting cattle from disease.

Sense 3: A beacon, a bonfire.

Brian