spjall

From Old Norse spjall, from Proto-Germanic *spellą. Cognate with English spell, dialectal German Spill, Albanian fjalë.

spjall n (genitive singular spjalls, nominative plural spjöll)

1. talk, gossip

• (talk): samræða f
• (gossip): slúður n

• spjalla
• spjallþráður

From Proto-Germanic *spellą (“news, message, tale”). Cognate with Old English spell, Old Saxon spel, Old High German spel, Gothic 𐍃𐍀𐌹𐌻𐌻 (spill). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *spel- (“to tell”).

• (12th century Icelandic) IPA^(key): /ˈspjɑlː/

spjall n (genitive spjalls, plural spjǫll)

1. saying, tale
   • Skáld-Helga Rímur: fjorda rima, verse 10, line 2, in 1838, Grønlands Historiske Mindesmærker, Volume II. Copenhagen, page 147:

     […] ok hefr svá margt í spjalli; […]

     […] and has so many things to tell; […]

2. (poetic, especially in the plural) words, tales, tidings
   • Vǫluspá, verse 1, lines 7-8, in 1860, T. Möbius, Edda Sæmundar hins fróða: mit einem Anhang zum Theil bisher ungedruckter Gedichte. Leipzig, page 1:

     […] forn spjöll fíra, / þau er fremst um man.

     […] old tales of men / the first I remember.

• Icelandic: spjall n
• Old Swedish: spiäl
  • Swedish: spjäll

• Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1874) “spjall”, in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, page 583
• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “spjall”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 399; also available at the Internet Archive