Bosworth Toller's

Anglo-Saxon

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þorp

  • noun [ masculine ]
Dictionary links
Grammar
þorp, þrop, es; m. Perhaps the idea at first connected with the words is that of an assemblage, cf. the use in Icelandic: Maðr heitir einnhverr ... þorp ef þrír ero, Skáldskaparmál; þyrpast to crowd, throng: þyrping
Wright's OE grammar
§106; §232; §335;
a crowd: later the word may have been used of the assemblage of workers on an estate, and also of the estate on which they worked; all three ideas seem to be implied in one or other of the following glosses
Show examples

  • Tuun, þrop, ðrop conpetum, Txts. 53, 557: Wrt. Voc. ii. 15, 7. Compitum i. villa vel þingstów

    vel

    þrop,
      132, 56.

  • Þrop

    fundus,

    i.
      37, 51.

  • The idea of an estate belongs to the word in Gothic: Þaurp ni gastaistald

    άγρόν oύκ έκτησάμην,

      Neh. 5, 16.

  • In the end the meaning came to be

    hamlet, village,

    in which sense it remained for some time in English, e.g.:

    Ic Ædgar gife freodom Sce Petres mynstre Medeshamstede of kyng and of biscop, and ealle þa þorpes þe ðærto lin: ðæt is, Æstfeld and Dodesthorp and Ege and Pastun,

      Chr. 963; Erl. 121, 40.

  • He com to Bethfage, swo hatte þe prop,

      O. E. Homl. ii. 89, 13.

  • Ther stod a throp ... in which that poure folk hadden her bestes and her herbergage,

      Chauc. Cl. T. 199.

  • Thorp, litell towne or thoroughfare

    oppidum,

      Prompt. Parv. 492.
  • The word is now obsolete, but it remains in a great many local names, either alone or in composition; though, as such names are found mostly in those parts of England which were affected by the Danes, its occurrence in them may be due rather to Scandinavian than to English influence. v. Leo, Anglo-Saxon Names of Places, p. 43 sqq.; Taylor's words and Places, s.v.
Etymology
[Goth. þaurp: O. Frs. thorp, therp: O. L. Ger. thorp, tharp: Du. dorp: O. H. Ger. dorf villa, vicus, praedium, oppidum, municipium: Icel. þorp a hamlet, village.]
Linked entries
v.  þrop.
Entry information
Citation

Bosworth, Joseph. “þorp.” In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/31961.

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Full form

Word-wheel

  • þorp, n.

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