heita

• eh ta, eita, heit, heitha, heito, het, heyitha, heyta, huit^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈheɪt(a)/

heita

1. (South Africa, colloquial) Greeting, hello; hi
   • 2008, Ben Trovato, Ben Trovato's Art of Survival, page 51:

     I can hear the conversation: "Heita, bra. Let's go. We don't need bullets."

   • 1964, w:Lawrence G. Green, Old Men Say, page 61:

     ‘Het ou Pellie!’ I suppose that is the most typical of the popular greetings that belong essentially to Cape Town; but the origin would be hard to trace. One expert thinks it falls into the Malay-Portuguese group.

   • 1986, T. Thoka, English usage in Southern Africa, University of South Africa, page 20:

     ‘Heita’ is a popular greeting used by the mapantsula. It simply means ‘hello’. Of course, one can go further by saying ‘Heita hoezet majita?’ (Hello, how are you, friends?).

• Theia

• IPA^(key): [ˈhaiːta]

From Old Norse heita (“to heat”).

heita

1. to heat

• (heat): hita, verma

From Old Norse heita (“to call”).

heita

1. (kvæði) to beg, to ask
2. (biblical) to promise

• (beg, ask): biðja
• (promise): lova

heita

1. (archaic, poetic) to call

• (call): eita

From Old Norse heita, from Proto-Germanic *haitaną.

• IPA^(key): /ˈheiːta/

• Rhymes: -eiːta

heita (strong verb, third-person singular past indicative hét, third-person plural past indicative hétu, supine heitið)

1. to be called, to be named

   Synonym: nefnast

   • Revelation 6-11 (English and Icelandic)

     Og ég sá, og sjá: Bleikur hestur, og sá er á honum sat, hann hét Dauði, og Hel var í för með honum. Þeim var gefið vald yfir fjórða hluta jarðarinnar, til þess að deyða með sverði, með hungri og drepsótt og láta menn farast fyrir villidýrum jarðarinnar.

     I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

   Ég heiti Baldur.

   My name is Baldur.

2. to promise

   Synonym: lofa

   Ég heiti þér því.

   I promise it to you.

• heite (e and split infinitives)

• IPA^(key): /²hɛɪːta/

From Old Norse heita, from Proto-Germanic *haitaną.

heita (present tense heiter, past tense heitte or het, past participle heitt, present participle heitande, imperative heit)

1. (intransitive) to be called or named; have a name

   Kva heiter du?

   What is your name?

Related to or derived from the adjective heit (“hot, warm”). Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haitaz.

heita (present tense heitar, past tense heita, past participle heita, passive infinitive heitast, present participle heitande, imperative heita/heit)

1. (transitive) to heat

Partly from Old Norse heita (“to promise”) and partly from Old Norse hóta (“to threaten”).

heita (present tense heitar, past tense heita, past participle heita, passive infinitive heitast, present participle heitande, imperative heita/heit)

1. (transitive) to threaten, scare

From heit and heita.

heita f (definite singular heita, indefinite plural heiter or heitor, definite plural heitene or heitone)

1. (pre-2012 or dialectal) alternative form of heite (“heat”)

• “heita” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-Germanic *haitaną, from Proto-Indo-European *key(w)-, *kyew- (“to set in motion”). Cognate with Old English hātan, Old Saxon hētan, Old High German heizzan, Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (haitan).

heita (singular past indicative hét, plural past indicative hétu, past participle heitinn)

1. (transitive) to call
2. (intransitive) to be called, to be named

   Ek heiti Ásgerðr. ― My name is Ásgerðr.

3. to promise [with dative]

In the sense of being called something, bearing a particular name, the inflectional endings in the present tense singular indicative, follow a weak inflection pattern, and not the strong one—thus the example sentence above is not ek *heit Ásgerðr. This is a fossil of the old Germanic passive, which was productive in Gothic and presumably also Proto-Norse.

For all other senses of the word, all inflectional endings are as expected.

• heita á (“to call upon, invoke”)

• Icelandic: heita
• Faroese: eita, heita
• Norwegian Nynorsk: heita
• Old Swedish: hēta
  • Swedish: heta
• Old Danish: hetæ
  • Danish: hedde, hede
    • Norwegian Bokmål: hete
• Old Gutnish: haita

• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “heita”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at the Internet Archive

heita

1. abessive of hö