v.
Gaw infin. lausen, pres. 3 sg. lawsez; Cl past lauced; Erk infin. louse, past 3 sg. loused; WA pres. 3 sg. lowsys
'to loosen, undo, break, alleviate, utter, relieve'
(Modern English loose)Formed on the ME adj. laus, lōs etc., cp. OIcel lauss ‘loose, free (etc.)’ (cp. runic lAusʀ) < PGmc *lausa-; cp. OE lēas, Go laus, OFris lās, OS, OHG lōs. See also laucyng.
PGmc Ancestor
*lausa-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
lauss ‘loose, free (etc.)’
(ONP lauss (adj.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far leysur, Icel laus, Norw laus, Dan løs, Sw lös
OE Cognate
OE lēas (adj.) 'without, free from'
Phonological and morphological markers
ON /au/ < PGmc */au/
Summary category
A1*
Widespread since early ME. On the various reflexes of ON lauss in PDE dialects, see further Thorson 36-7 and Kolb 1989: 293-4.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 1784, 2376; Cl 668, 957,966 etc.; Erk 165, 178; WA 788*
There are in addition several forms in the Gaw MS (526, 1212, 1343, 1350, 1766, 2124) which may be read as either <lauc-> or <lanc-> and thus various editions treat them under the head of either lausen or lancen (for discussion see Anderson 1969: 350n, PS 526n, McGillivray 526n). GollCl (followed by Anderson) reads <lauced> and <lauce> at Cl 668, 966 and 1428 where Menner (following Morris) reads <lansed> and <lance> (see further McGee 403). GollCl creates another instance at Cl 441 by emending MS <lasned> to la[u]sned, but is not followed by other editors.