Grace

It seems to me that Zoega´s gloss for the meaning ‘praise’ is bregða við, ie it would seem that the preposition við is critical for this meaning, and that without the preposition, as in the text we are looking at, bregða can´t really have this meaning. To give an equivalent English example, one couldn’t say that the verb to put has the meanings “to distract” or “to postpone” but these meanings become possible when put is combined with off, ie to put off.

Cheers

Alan