kayre (1)

v. (wk.)

Gaw cayrez, past kayred; Pe, Cl cayre, past pl., pp. cayred; WA infin. caire, pres. 1 sg. caire, kaire, pres. 3 sg. cairis, caires, kaires, cares, carez, pl. caires, cairis, kaires, kairis, imp. sg. caire, imp. pl. caires, past pl. caired

'to go, ride, bring, drive, ?dither, hesitate' (Modern English )

Etymology

cp. OIcel keyra ‘to drive, ride, whip’, usually derived from a PGmc *kaurjan- or *kauzjan-. There are no certainly related terms outside of Scandinavia, although parallel formations from the same root have been supposed (inc. OE cierran) and less plausible arguments have been made for alternative roots (see Dance for discussion).  See also caryez.

PGmc Ancestor

*kaurjan- or *kauzjan-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

keyra ‘to drive, ride, whip’
(ONP keyra (vb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far koyra, Icel kayra, Norw køyra, Dan køre, Sw köra

OE Cognate

Phonological and morphological markers

ON /ey/ < PGmc */au/ by front mutation

absence of palatalization of */k/

Summary category

A1c

Attestation

Favoured by alliterative poets of all dial from as early at c.1325, otherwise attested in N and E. See further Clark 1951: 395.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 734, 1048, 1670 etc.; Pe 1031; Cl 85, 901, 945 etc.; WA 153, 859, 887 etc.

Gaw 734 caryez is sometimes emended to *cayrez, see caryez. On the phrase cayred and com at Cl 85, see Menner 85n. Anderson (following GollCl, see 1259n) glosses 'drive' at 1259, observing that his accords well with the sense on ON keyra, while Menner (followed by Vantuono) gives instead 'pull, drag', suggesting confusion with ME carie. Anderson argues for an additional sense '?dither, hesitate' attested at Cl 945 based on MnE dial senses (see 945n). On a possible alternative identification of the word see kayre (2) (v.). 

Bibliography

MED cairen (v.) , OED cair (v.) , HTOED , Dance kayre, Bj. 64, de Vries keyra, Mag. keyra, Bj-L. kjøre, Kroonen *kaizwjan-