n.
Cl seete; WA seete, sette
'seat, throne, place at table, abode'
(Modern English seat)cp. OIcel sæti (neut.) ‘seat’ < PGmc *sētjan, cp. OE gesǣte (neut.) ‘snare, ambush’, MLG gesāte, OHG gisāzi ‘seat, resting place, dwelling’. There are several (infrequently attested) OE derivations on the same Ablaut grade: gesǣte (wk. neut.) < *sētjan, sǣte (wk. fem.) ‘house’ < *sētōn (cp. OIcel sáta ‘truss of hay’, OFris sēte ‘bail’, OHG hūs-sāza ‘home’) and sǣt (str. fem.) ‘lurking place, snare, ambush’ < *sētō (cp. OIcel sát ‘(sitting in) ambush’). These make it hard to rule out a native word ‘place where one sits, i.e. seat’, but the evidence of ME spelling and rhyme points overwhelmingly to ME /ɛ:/ < ON mutated /æ:/, not the close /e:/ required as a reflex of OE ǣ1 in Angl dial.
PGmc Ancestor
*sētjan
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
sæti ‘seat’
(ONP sæti (2) (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far sæti, Icel sæti, Norw sæte, ODan sæte, Dan sæde, OSw sǣte Sw säte
OE Cognate
gesǣte ‘snare, ambush’
Phonological and morphological markers
ON /ɑ:/ < PGmc */e:/ (1)
Summary category
A1*
First attested in the OE BenRW, and widespread since early ME (first attested in Orrm). For the ambiguous place-name evidence, see EPNE.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 72, 493; Cl 37, 92, 176, etc.; Pat 24; WA 238, 482, 801* etc.