eard

From Proto-West Germanic *ard, from Proto-Germanic *ardiz, *arduz, *arþuz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erh₃- (“to plough”).

Cognate with Old Saxon ard, Old High German art (German Art). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin arō, Ancient Greek ἀρόω (aróō), Old East Slavic орати (orati), Russian ора́ть (orátʹ).

• IPA^(key): /æ͜ɑrd/, [æ͜ɑrˠd]

eard m

1. homeland, native soil; one's home, a dwelling

   Ðis is mīn āgen ēþel, eard, and land

   This is my own country, home and land.

   • c. 992, Ælfric, "On the Greater Litany"

     Wē sind eall cuman on þissum līfe, and ūre eard nis nā hēr, ac wē sind hēr swelċe weġfērende menn. Ān cymþ, ōðer færeþ. Sē biþ ācenned, sē ōðer forþfæreþ and rȳmþ him setl.

     We are all guests in this life, and our home is not here, but we're here as wayfaring people. One person comes, another goes. One is born, another dies and makes them room.

   • Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church

     Þæt seofode wīte wæs, þæt swā miċel ðunor and hagol becōm on ðām lēodsċipe, þæt...ǣlċ trēow on ðām earde tōbǣrst.

     The seventh plague was that there was such great thunder and hail in that country, that...every tree in the land split in two.

2. earth, land
3. state; station; condition; fate

Strong u-stem:

• Eardgȳþ
• eardian

• eorþe
• erian
• yrþ

• Middle English: art
  • Scots: airt
  • Yola: ete
• Middle English: erd, ard, arde, urde
  • English: erd (in part)

eard

1. alternative form of erth

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 38