Etymology
Always derived from ON, cp. OIcel
leggr ‘leg, hollow bone (of arms and legs)’. Its further etymology is obscure, and the only clear cognate outside NGmc is Langobardic
lagi ‘thigh’, indicating a PGmc
*lag-ja- with ON
-gg- owing to gemination before [j] rather than
Verschärfung. This PGmc
*lag- is difficult to account for, but has often been explained by comparison with supposed cognates like Lat
lacertus ‘(upper) arm’, presuming a PIE
*lVk-, and in that case plausibly connected to OIcel
lær ‘thigh’ (< PGmc
*lah(w)az, or perhaps
*lēh(w)az, without Verner's Law on the same root
*lVh-) and perhaps also to OE
lēow ‘thigh’ (<
*legwaz, with Verner's Law). Lidén (1906: 365–7) (and Pokorny 673,
AEW s.vv. lēow, līra) also attaches OE
līra ‘flesh’ to this group, < a PGmc
*ligiz- (though see further Kroonen s.v. *lehizan-). On the other hand Bj-L. prefer to derive
leggr < the PGmc
*lag- ‘lay’ root (as in OIcel
leggja, OE
lecgan etc.); they interpret
*lag-ja- as a ja-stem agent noun with the original sense ‘(out)lier, extremity’, and regard compounds like OIcel
armleggr ‘arm’,
fótleggr ‘leg’ as the context for the semantic transfer to ‘limb’. Native origin is implausible, given the lack of anything to suggest assibilated /dʒ/ in any of the English reflexes of
leg (even if the non-palatalization of medial /ɡ/ cannot strictly be regarded as a test of a loan), and the late attestation in English of a word for such a basic concept supports the likelihood of derivation from ON.
PGmc Ancestor
*lag-ja-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
leggr ‘leg, hollow bone (of arms and legs)’
(ONP leggr (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far leggur, Icel leggur, Norw legg, Dan legg, læg, Sw lägg
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
[absence of palatalization of */ɡ/]
(possibly diagnostic)
Summary category
B2