Etymology

cp. OIcel blanda ‘to mix (together)’ and OE blandan 'to blend, mix'. While the ON v. can be conjugated as either st. or wk., the cognates in OE and the other Gmc. languages are all st. (cp. Go blandan, OS blandan, OHG blantan). If the sole occurrence of the v. in ME (Gaw 1931) blande is parsed as a wk. pp. (as e.g. TGD), it would support an interpretation of loan from the wk. ON v., but it can just as easily be understood as a str. pp. minus -n (Magoun 1937: 131) and native derivation is therefore more likely. See further blende (n).

PGmc Ancestor

*blandan-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

blanda ‘to mix (together)’
(ONP blanda (2) (vb.), blanda (3) (vb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far blanda, Icel blanda, Norw, blanda, Dan blande, Sw blanda

OE Cognate

blandan 'to blend, mix'

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CCC1c

Attestation

This is the only certain record of a v. bland- in ME (MED suggests that MS blonde at a1475 Liber Cocorum (Sln 1986) p.24 is an error for *blende).

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 1931

Madden and Morris both incorrectly parse Gaw 1205 n. blande as a pp. (see blande).

Bibliography

MED blēnden (v.2) (1b), OED bland (v.1) , HTOED , Dance blande (1), de Vries blanda (2), Mag. blanda, Bj-L. blande, Seebold bland-a-, Orel *ƀlanðanan, Kroonen *blandan-, DOE blandan, AEW blandan