Searchable Lemmata: hæwen (OE).
Alternate Forms: hæwene, hæwenne, hæwenum.
1(adj.)
Dye;
a word used to refer to a strong (sometimes dark) colour, primarily blue; but especially in glossarial contexts, equated with various vivid colours. Found also in various compounds (blæhæwen, grenehæwen).(ante 900 - ante 1100)
1. And myd Indeum he getymbrede hyra cyninges healle on heofonum, se wæs on naman Gundaforus, and þæt geseah þæs cyninges broðor, þæs sawl wæs on heofenas gelæded myd godes englum, þæt seo heall wæs getymbred ynnan and utan myd grenum and myd hæwenum and myd hwytum.
Biblical/Hagiographic.
[DOE Mart 2.1 (Herzfeld-Kotzor) (0205 (De 21, A.11)) ante 900]
2. Þæt heo wunode wæstmbære mid wæstme & þæt heo agulde ðancwurðne fodan forðbringende gelimplice spryttingce wlitig mid hæwenum blostme
Ecclesiastic/Regula.
[DOE HyGl 3 (Gneuss) (0085 (19.2))]
Ceremonial: No
Body Parts:
Definite, native Old English word, from the same root as haw (q.v.) 'blue, discoloured', ultimately from the PIE root *ḱyeh₁- 'dark shade' which lies also behind the Proto-Germanic root *hiwjan > English 'hue'. There has been a considerable amount of investigation into the semantic history and sociolinguistics of the word, in an attempt to account for its range of meaning. Biggam (in various places, but for a recent statement see Biggam, C.P. 2006) has concluded that hæwen, although common in texts (over forty occurences both as simplex and compounds), was not a basic colour term due to its variety of application. She has proposed that it mainly is used to mean 'blue' in Old English scholarly texts, but had a wider range of meanings (blue, grey, grey-blue, sea-coloured, etc.), equally distributed in popular genres, which led to its ousting by the French borrowing 'blue' from the twelfth century onwards.
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Etym Cog:
